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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Film review: New age movie, 'Finding Joe'...about finding your bliss

Film review: A documentary look at Joseph Campbell's ideas on Myth, 'Finding Joe'
by Peter Menkin



Golden Buddha



One reviewer wrote:
This is an inspiring documentary. For those who feel they’ve dead-ended in life, it’s worthwhile to see people out there that have found divine joy in their lives. It’s self-help- (almost to a fault) but this film isn’t preachy.


In a documentary that touts the virtues of new age philosophy, Finding Joe speaks of finding one’s bliss in a series of interviews with people you may know as motivational speakers, authors of bestselling books, the Deepak Chopra, a surfer, and a skateboard professional among others. A kind of advertisement in style and cinematic form, the film opens with the story of the Golden Buddha and lets the viewer know that each of us is golden.

What does that mean? First it is said by Alan Cohen in a way that has authority and believability, a real conviction, and a sense of religious enthusiasm. It is really not a nonsense statement, but a way of starting this documentary series of interviews and statements with a myth that offers how key subject of the film is saying: Joseph Campbell, a writer about myths whom many have respected and enjoyed for what he’s offered as insight in living life and the story presents the hero’s journey: a path to bliss.

The Press Notice provided by the producers reads: Rooted in deeply personal accounts and timeless stories, FINDING JOE shows how Campbell’s work is relevant and essential in today’s world and how it provides a narrative for how to live a fully realized life—or as Campbell would simply state, how to “follow your bliss”.
The film features interviews with visionaries from a variety of fields including Deepak Chopra, Mick Fleetwood, Tony Hawk, Rashida Jones, Laird Hamilton, Robert Walter, Robin Sharma, Catherine Hardwicke, Sir Ken Robinson, Akiva Goldsman and many more.

While studying myths, and writing on the human experience, Joseph Campbell was a professor at Sarah Lawrence College for 38 years. His seminal work, “A Hero with a Thousand Faces” was published in 1949 and greatly influenced generations of artists and writers, including Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Jerry Garcia and others.
Director Patrick Takaya Solomon said “Joseph Campbell’s work has influenced every major turning point in my life, including my decision to become a director. I owe my good fortune to the ‘aha moments’ I experienced while reading his books. I was compelled to make this film, and look forward to working with Balcony to share it with audiences across America.”


Probably the most succinct statement about the way the film depicts the journey of life and finding meaning, outside the Christian faith and within the California dreaming popularity of New Age sensibility, is how one woman says she learned about Joseph Campell when studying religion in College. The actress tells us she was, “God smacked” by the transformational power of Joseph Campbell’s teachings, and how she learned, “all religions are the same.”

This universalism may seem trite to a degree of amusement, but because it is so pervasive as a way of life that says, You can do it, and offers that we all have Human Potential, the movement becomes a popular philosophy spoken of in serious tones by so many Californians and western American individuals. The film has been released in the Western United States and hopes to make its way East through distribution channels.

The hero’s journey is simply that one is restored and redeemed through trial. It is that we learn who we are in a coming of age manner and allows everyone without much effort, but for a kind of special exercise in insight, to “arrive.” Some call this Transformation Work.

Hero at Work

A film consisting of happy scenes of excitement, action and success as backdrop to a series of interwoven and cut between interviews with successful people, Finding Joe tells the viewer that through this method of the journey, that you, we, all of us full of potential will get out of everything wrong in life.

This path to pure consciousness is through a way of negative feelings and experiences, experiences overcome by recognizing that this is how one becomes the hero in one’s own life, not the victim. Albeit this is a lot of philosophy, and the center of the message remains Joseph Campbell’s advice to follow ones bliss.

How does one follow one’s bliss? Find out what your passion is and you will find a way to your bliss, so Deepak Chopra offers. The skateboarder Tony Hawk says he found his bliss: skateboarding. He offers, “I just want to fly.”

What is there to say beyond all this?




From the webpage Finding Joe:

Hi, I’m Pat Solomon, producer and director of Finding Joe. For the past 12 years I have been directing commercials; you can check out my reel at newhousefilms.com. I started my career shooting action sports films: snowboarding, motocross and skateboarding, etc. Notable films include Totally Board and Crusty Demons of Dirt. I started Finding Joe in February 2009 and, even though it’s not yet completed, it has been the best experience of my professional life by a mile.
Joseph Campbell’s work has influenced every major turning point in my life, including my decision to become a director. I owe my good fortune to the concepts and ideas that I discovered in his books. The Hero with a Thousand Faces put me on a path years ago that led me here, to my present film Finding Joe. One day in 2009 I saw The Power of Myth again and though I love that program I felt I could better understand the material if there was more visuals to help describe the concepts.


INTERVIEW BY THIS WRITER PETER MENKIN

Informal pose in sketch of the interviewer Peter Menkin at Starbucks, north of San Francisco

  1. 1. The press notice describing your documentary, Finding Joe, reads: FINDING JOE is an exploration of what Campbell calls “the hero’s journey” and intends to highlight a path for the audience. The film features such notable guests as Deepak Chopra, Laird Hamilton, Tony Hawk, Gay Hendricks, Rashida Jones, Mick Fleetwood and many more. There is so much to explore in this work you’ve directed. As a start, this statement from an article on Beliefnet about Religion and Spirituality titled, “Spiritual but not Religious,” by Robert C. Fuller: Forsaking formal religious organizations, these people have instead embraced an individualized spirituality that includes picking and choosing from a wide range of alternative religious philosophies. They typically view spirituality as a journey intimately linked with the pursuit of personal growth or development. A woman who joined a meditation center after going through a divorce and experiencing low self-esteem offers an excellent example. All she originally sought was a way to lose weight and get her life back on track. The Eastern religious philosophy that accompanied the meditation exercises was of little or no interest to her. Yet she received so many benefits from this initial exposure to alternative spiritual practice that she began experimenting with other systems including vegetarianism, mandalas, incense, breathing practices, and crystals. When interviewed nine years later by sociologist Marilyn McGuire, this woman reported that she was still “just beginning to grow” and she was continuing to shop around for new spiritual insights. Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Books/2002/07/Spiritual-But-Not-Religious.aspx?p=2#ixzz1Zx8Y3EUU Do you think as director that Joseph Campbell was looking at spirituality in this kind of way described in the Beliefnet article, or does your film really explore religion in the Christian sense as a journey of the hero? Is there something unique about the hero’s journey Campbell offers as interpreted in your documentary that you wanted to say in your new film, Finding Joe?



It was Campbell looking at spirituality – My belief, yes; Campbell was looking at spirituality and all of religion and mythology as a personal experience. The thing that I took away from Campbell’s work is there was a personal aspect in every story. That is, the story is about you. So the answer to the question, I guess, is yes, if you are looking at stories whether they are religious or not, you are looking at them in a personal way. It’s a Campbell thing. All stories become personal. They are stories about people learning and growing.


  1. 2. That first question given above was a big question, so encompassing. When working on a documentary about big ideas and big questions of life, how did you find a way to ground the statements to better involve and communicate to the audience what you offered about myth? Was the visual work that in so many instances is very strong, part of that statement— kind of high impact as a television commercial is played? This writer asks the question because you made television commercials. To better refine the question of director’s point of view, did you find certain methods learned in commercial making work transferred to this documentary, and if so, what were they? Will you give us an example of one or two such instances?

My big thing as a commercial director was kind of a blessing in making this film. It was almost like I was in a training ground in making this film. Basically, in a commercial you have a very short time to convey a message. Usually that is a retail message. Usually as a commercial director you learn to make a highly impactful style, or your shot making becomes all about making the biggest impact in a short amount of time. To make it a short sound bite. I had been selling products to the masses for years, and I finally had this product I really resonated with. I already had this great idea to sell, instead of corporate products. I think the general concept of the kids acting out various points of the hero’s journey, so the idea of tying an image or an enactment with what people were saying on screen, was really in itself directly impactful on film. And that comes from commercials. And then when you see the images, they’re quite strong and impactful with an emotional resonance with them. You get an emotional impact, either up or down. That for me came from commercials.

I really consciously made an effort to edit the piece using a lot of editing methods where people ended each other’s statement, and all saying one thing about the same thing. There’s an example from the film where someone’s describing the journey from the Hero’s’ Journey, a mandala … so instead of having one person describe one point along the journey…I’m really cutting between all five of them. So it has more impact for the viewer when it has more points of view. They were describing the Hero’s Journey Circle. They started with separation, and they move into initiation, and then return back to the beginning. That’s a mandala: the vision of how that is presented.


Finding Joe – Trailer V.7 from pat solomon on Vimeo.


  1. 3. Among the many interesting and well-known figures you interviewed, including Depak Chopra, who did you find in your own estimation had the strongest sense that was closest to your point of view on myth and the spiritual in people’s lives? Do you think that these views presented are in some way non-religious statements, which is they are parallel but not the same as the Christian message? What in the religious realm, among the many denominations of the Christian faith, meet the ideas presented by myth and spirituality? Is this path, or way, at all something by which we may learn to live better lives, more fully lived lives, because of the myths Joseph Campbell notes in his writings and works?


Really, from a mythological standpoint, the work of Campbell opens up the Christian method…As it does for many religions. As you know, Campbell was a Catholic. His parents were strict Catholics. To him, when he started comparative mythology to his story to other stories, he was able to experience the Christian message in a way that the Church didn’t offer. It kind of opened up his experience of Christianity, rather than a strict dogma—it was more liberating. Once again, the stories took on a personal meaning.




  1. 4. Talk to our readers for a short time about the story of the Hero’s Journey created by Joseph Campbell, for many will not be aware of this wonderful tale that talks of human development, challenge, and even psychological awakening to the civilized world in the West?


To start with, the hero’s journey…I think that Campbell when he created it, he discovered it. It is a similar pattern found in every hero’s journey told from the beginning of time until now. That is a hero starts out (or heroine) in his her village and is somehow called to an adventure, and along the way they meet obstacles they must overcome. They gain power; they come to the ultimate battle or crisis where the treasure is owned. And they return to share the treasure. That’s an extremely simplified version. Sometimes you try to live and have a treasure and don’t enjoy it. The symbolism of the dragon in the western culture is the greedy or bad … the dragon hordes the treasure. The dragon hordes the virgin. It’s a treasure he cannot use. In the east the dragon is more vital and life affirming.

Almost all of the stories in the Bible represent a hero’s journey. Jesus went into the desert and had his trials and he came back. The Bible is full of stories like that. Campbell uses the story of Jonah. That’s a staple of Jonah that he gets into the belly of the whale. That one is getting into the deepest, darkest places of yourself…dealing with your own demons, darkness, ogres and dragons.


  1. 5. What in your own life do you think merits a comparison with some of what you offer in your film Finding Joe, and where may we see this in the film? Did you take any time away from the camera and the documentary we as audience see that you’d like to tell us about that will help an audience member better appreciate your work and the documentary itself?



Most of the things that I covered in the movie are a personal representation of my journey. For an example, there is this apotheosis that we die and are resurrected in another form. So in your life and mine we are born again and we die. I think in the Christian sense, when you are born again the old part of your way of being is killed, and you are resurrected as a different person. This happens to other people in their lives with tragedies. You get to be a different person and add something new.


  1. 6. It’s been a pleasure to get to make your acquaintance in this way. If there is something this writer has not covered that you want to add, please do so at this time.

The movie comes out in San Francisco Bay Area October 14. It’s in Los Angeles and it is doing well. It opens in Santa Barbara today. We are setting with West Coast theatres and moving East. When the movie plays it theatrical release, it will be available in DVD…same title, Finding Joe.


Informal sketch of writer Peter Menkin by Kranes, M.D. of Mill Valley, California


This film review appeared originally in Church of England Newspaper, London.

Play review: Bill Cain's new work, 'How to Write a New Book for the Bible' at Berkeley Repertory Theatre

At Berkeley Rep, Tyler Pierce (left) and Linda Gehringer star in the world premiere of Bill Cain’s How to Write a New Book for the Bible. Photo: kevinberne.com



INTRODUCTION

This play, How to Write a New Book for the Bible, is good regional theatre USA. This play is well worth the price of the ticket, which for the seats held by this writer and his assistant were each $53. Good seats they were, for we were able to see and hear everything. Terrific, though pretty basic as that kind of arrangement and need in a theatre may be, it is written about here to let the reader know that this size theatre, in this venue, is such a good place for a play like Bill Cain’s new work that is in development. After all, the play is new and the manuscript, let alone the players in their role, still being formed and developed. This adds to the fun, and though some say an Opening Night isn’t the best night to come to a play, there is an excitement about Opening Night and the opportunity to see a kind of birth of work in the theatre. Let this writer add to such excitement, Hallelujah! A birth of a play by Bill Cain in the theatre is presented in Berkeley, California USA on Addison Street in San Francisco’s Bay Area.

(By the way, parking in a nearby garage was a mere $5. This is an added attraction.)

How to Write a New Book for the Bible is an intriguing title that reflects the playwright’s comment that each family creates a Biblical story, a drama, and epic, and myth, and a statement of human lives on earth as created beings of God. That isn’t something that is said so often in the theatre in so clear a manner, or so interesting a form without it being heavy handed. The play has a human touch that is while sorrowful, and amusing, also somewhat ironic and reflective. That’s a lot to pack into an ethos, but since the work is a kind of diary and the character Bill is a kind of narrator and observer (is he not a writer?), we get the journey of a life lived and the end of a woman’s life who is clearly identified as a strong woman and mother.

The theatre Berkeley Repertory is an attractive place for a play, a place to visit, and located in a safe district that has an air of a small city’s sophistication, enough of that in this neighborhood to suggest an excitement and that in this way the handsome front of the modern look of the building is a marker for a living theatre district. Berkeley Repertory Theatre has many kudos from its life of presenting work in the theatre, and this is not the place to say it has a good reputation and that this writer isn’t alone nor the first to notice the quality and even a kind of élan of this place in the University town of Berkeley, so well-known for its more liberal ideas and various political concerns. But the theatre does not follow the party line of the City, per se. One thing I like about this theatre is they are willing to publish a brochure on the play, which was handed out to the Press among others that says, “World Premiere.” In a way, this is true for How to Write a New Book for the Bible.

This is its launching place, a new work that will appear elsewhere in regional theatres in the United States in years to come. Directed by Kent Nicholson, and a co-production with Seattle Repertory Theatre where it will go after the Thrust Stage location within Berkeley Repertory run from October 7 through November 20, 2011, a postcard tells us that all one needs to do to learn more is when visiting the internet, click Berkeleyrep.org. Here is the text from the postcard, a postcard from the theatre:

POSTCARD FROM THE THEATRE

Every family creates a sacred story out of love. In Bill Cain’s poignant new play, a man moves in with his mother when she becomes too frail to care for herself. Their reunion heals old wounds, opening a heartfelt and humorous new chapter in their relationship. From the award-winning author of Equivocation and 9 Circles, this timeless tale celebrates a mother’s love and a son’s devotion. Respected director Kent Nicholson comes back to the Bay Area for the world premiere of How to Write a New Book for the Bible.


LETTER FROM THIS REVIEWER AND WRITER

Bill Cain in his new play, How to Write a New Book for the Bible talks about his mother getting old and dying, about being a son and going through the death of a parent, but mostly the work was noticeably active in a way that brought the audience to laugh out loud at the premiere of the work, performed opening night, October 12, 2011, at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. This is a play about what it means to be a family. For Jesuit Priest Bill Cain, who as theatre person has the name Bill Cain, no Father Bill or The Reverend Bill, but plain Bill, the story is one of Biblical kind. More on this later.

This writer was interested that a Jesuit Priest lived the theatrical life in the regional theatre of America, wrote successful and lauded as award winning works, and also entered the world of television writing. He said in his interview, found below, that the Jesuits go into the World to find God. I assume they also bring God to the world. By this God is meant as the Triune God and Christ in particular.

Before opening night, where this writer was part of the audience and joined in the pleasure of what some said on exiting the theatre after the night of performance that lasted 2 hours 20 minutes for two acts, a “wonderful” work, an interchange of emails with the Berkeley Repertory Theatre press officer told this truth. The Press Officer said that everyone called Bill, Bill. Apparently, this writer was the only one he’d heard refers to the Jesuit Priest as Father Bill. So I stopped doing so, recognizing the theatrical name of a playwright, and the writing name for the author of this really sensitive and beautiful work.

The manuscript sent to this Religion Writer prior to the opening night production is a lovely piece of craftsmanship, and though at the reading I did in one seating I found it more beautiful and touching than funny; the opening night audience of the just about packed theatre saw it as a funny play. Lots of laughter, enjoyment, fun and just plain real attention played to a performance that started out a bit off timing and as the evening progressed gained its feet and went so very well. This writer found the evening’s work of performance engrossing.

One thing noticed by me was that the actor Tyler Pierce playing the lead role of Bill, whose mother was in her last time of life, moving in journey to death and in pain while that transpired, as too young to be believable in the part. Also, the role of Bill wasn’t interpreted in a Priestly manner, not in a character and demeanor of authority and compassion as this writer knows Priests offer in their real presence.

Disturbing to this member of the audience as that was, it began to dawn on me that I wasn’t tracking this imaginative play with its spare and symbolic set of few pieces of set on the stage in the manner it was presented and meant to be enjoyed. The audience needed to have imagination, and they themselves, as I did, had to engage their imagination to see the different speeches, and intertwined statements and little scenes come to credibility, life and understanding in its directorial and theatrical presentation. This even by the written style and structure of the play by the playwright that skillfully intertwined various parts well. This isn’t to say the play is a radical work of structure and writing. It is not. It is to say that at Berkeley Repertory Theatre one must as audience member “get with” the point of view and kind of casting choice made to get the full impact of the style presented in the staging of the work. This member of the audience had to, anyway.

Of course, in time this play may as it is developed see other interpretations, and this creative one was intriguing when thought about in retrospect.

A word on the lighting and sound: No doubt someone gave thought to both, for both contributed well to the kind of structure of small, intermixed scenes in time and character, almost like a series of speeches and eras of memory in the life of the son Bill and his Brother—even his dead father who appears to speak in the play.

Imaginative, Yes. Engrossing, Yes. Does it work, Yes. Thank you for a skilled piece of playwright theatre Bill Cain, or if you prefer, Father Bill Cain, Jesuit Priest who lives in the world of the theatrical community. Excellent work of imagination by director Kent Nicholson, especially his staging.

One thing that bothered this Religion Writer was how irreverent the handling was of the more Holy parts, and hopefully later in a more narrative time of this review there will be more specific reference to what is meant by narrative time and Holy dialogue and invocation. Some will be noted in the Postscript with excerpts from the manuscript.

This is a Berkeley, California audience, an audience consisting of many young people and some old people, who may be less engaged or interested in the life of a Church or even this family with the son Bill who is a Priest who works as a writer and is working on a screenplay. They are not seen as particularly religious or pious, but presented more as human figures in relation to God and the end of life.

Also, the character of Bill is played as a man who is a writer before being a Priest, or as the playwright says in author’s message, as a person before being a Priest. This interesting concept is a subtext of the film, and another part of Bill Cain’s autobiographical play that he says he did not write so much as he took notes on from his own mother’s death and its events which he later transcribed from the diary he took.

Comedy? No. This is not comedy? Pathos and sadness expressed as laughter? Yes. It is a kind of post-modern interpretation and understanding of religion and the holy, especially matters of God as held in attitude and perception by most of the audience and played to with a kind of gusto by the players on the stage. It is even a kind of attempt at getting a laugh with sad, sorrowful situations of dying and coming to end of life and some analogies with the Bible as interpreted and played out in family dialogue and life.

This so much so that to an extent the language of the Bible is borrowed, or better yet, emulated in speech by the characters during part of the first act to show how human life is held in esteem by God. So I interpreted the intent of this kind of language, though Bill as Priest questioned whether God cared for man’s living or dying, or in the case of his family and their lives together–including the mother’s passions while coming towards death in her journey– as something God didn’t noticed. Strange stuff for a Priest to say, so I wondered and even thought in a critical way of the remarks.

The play is given to musing: It is Bill Cain’s play, and he is a real Roman Catholic Jesuit Priest in the real world as well as the world of the theatre, and this is what he said in his work How to Write a New Book for the Bible through his characters who offered their transitions and humanity of concern in relation to the Almighty as known in the Old and New Testaments. God is not paying attention to humans. He answers that remark later by the theme of the work, so this writer says in the Post Script.

The sets designed by Scott Bradley, and costumes by Callie Floor, with light by Alexander V. Nichols, and sound by Matt Starritt is professional. Again, there is creativity in the style and production of the staging of these elements, even to the change of costume by characters which are so necessary to the various presentations of scenes to help clarify the action and place of the scenes.

Aaron Blakely as Paul, the older brother who is a war hero and spent time in Vietnam, plays a strong and clear role in voice and reading of lines to add support and strength to the credibility of the show and its poignant caregiving. It is a juxtaposition that is rooted in a sibling relationship that in the play has as central focus the boys’ mother Linda Gehringer (Mary).

She is flexible, goes through many different moods, feelings and reactions in the telling of her life and in talking of her boys and husband and family that it is a kind of tour de force. Give Linda Gehringer a 42-gun salute. She shows well practiced and developed range as actress in her role: it is a meaty part for her…well done, and apparently enjoyed by this actress who is a central part of the play.

Leo Marks (Pete) is portrayed as a younger man, and one scene this writer found compelling was at the end of the play when Pete, Mary’s husband, greets her in heaven, creating a welcoming and expressive love. There is comfort for Mary in heaven, and even some relief from her trial the pain and cancer was to her as she lived toward death at the end of her life. The play by Bill Cain does not make her look foolish. She is a sound woman, despite her trials.

It is Tyler Pierce (Bill) who must spark the play, and be narrator and the place where the center of the work is found, not the mother. He does not look like a Priest to this member of the audience. He does not have manners or attitude in speech of a Priest, but looks not his age as it would be with an older mother, but appears the younger in year’s son who lives a kind of angst as a writer and does not hold angst of similar kind as caregiver for his mother. It was a good idea to interpret the part and play it in this manner, for after a while the consistence of performance by the actor becomes believable and engaging.

An intention of the theatre Berkeley Rep, as it is called, is to be a center for “the creation and development of new work.” Berkeley Rep has met that goal in this work.


NOTES TO THE LETTER

Berkeley Rep Dramaturge Madeleine Oldham posed some questions for the playwright, Bill Cain and reported on them in print. She asks:

Religion in contemporary America can be a fraught conversation at times. Have you encountered any pushback about drawing on the Bible in your play?

I think we all sense the religious nature of family and this play places that—as does the Bible—at the center of revelation. It’s hard to quarrel with that. One message given by the author so that we feel there is a lesson in coming to death and being companion in aiding the ailing given in the play: The Bible—it’s not a rule book. It’s the story of a family.


What do you hope people will walk away with when they see this play?

I hope they walk away with a great sense of joy, walk away carrying less fear about how life ends. My parents both gave off light as they died, and they found a way to make their deaths a summation of the goodness they had received and given for their whole lives. The play is very funny. And I think the reason for that is my parents understood that death does not negate life, but it’s one of the things in life. I hope the play works as a celebration of all of the darkness and light and not just some of it.


Do you write in other formats? What attracts you to writing for the stage?

I wrote for television for many years and loved doing that. Nothing Sacred for ABC-TV was one of the great experiences of my life. It won the Peabody Award and the Writer’s Guild Award with a bunch of others. We didn’t last long—one season—but, while we lasted, we created a national community and it was an extraordinary experience.
I don’t find much difference between stage and television. I love them both for the same reasons—gathering a community around a story—with any luck, with some laughter—always widening the circle of inclusion. I love theatre for its intimacy and television for its vast reach.


In her review appearing in The San Jose Mercury News, Karen D’Souza writes on October 13, 2011, In its world premiere at Berkeley Rep, “Bible” is a valediction inviting mourning, a tenderly crafted if not fully realized memoir about the holy trinity of Cain’s personal life. While the mother, father and brother characters come into sharper focus than the figure of the writer himself, Cain has still created a profound meditation on the shared narratives that hold a family together through the vagaries of life and death.
The intimacy of his remembrance gives this memory play its shattering resonance. The playwright is giving a blessing to his family in the form of theater, and there’s no denying the beauty of that ritual.

The Marin Theatre Company, another regional theatre in the San Francisco Bay Area, says this about writer Bill Cain. A quote about working with Bill Cain from their artistic director Jasson Minadakis:
“Bill has an amazingly inquisitive view of the world, as one would expect from a Jesuit priest. And we’re lucky that he has focused his questions through theater. His plays are vehicles for artists and audiences to explore the nature of truth, joy, pain, triumph and loss. As a storyteller, he examines big themes and big moments from history (both social and religious) and they are focused in by the priest in him that wants us to find our own truth and connection to the challenges, questions posed and answers found by his characters. When you experience one of his plays, you feel larger when you leave. He has the gift very few writers can claim, his work makes you richer and larger for having experienced it.”
For those readers who find this letter-to-a-reader as-review too long, suffice it to say, I like the play; it is good; go.



POSTSCRIPT THAT QUOTES FROM THE PLAY MANUSCRIPT




The notes that follow indicate that the quote from the manuscript in version August, 2011, reproduced with permission of the author, was noticeably fulfilled opening night. The big crowd—for most seats were taken—were greeted with the empty stage at play’s beginning. This spare set: of lamp (hung from the ceiling on a wire at table height above the stage floor), table with coffee cup (white), simple straight back dark wooden chair, and in the background a large stained glass marked at ceiling height by chandelier’s (3), some black & silver mobiles, created the set. This filled the author’s request, “no realistic set, please.”





At the beginning of the play, the author establishes the character of protagonist Bill in a monologue. It starts off a relationship Bill has with his father, mother and siblings in a manner that tells us something personal and private about this man who has come to live with his mother who is coming to the end of her life. Note he’s also been with his father when he was dying.


It is here that the play enters into a dialogue with the audience, a kind of narrative that in its imaginative structure and presentation engages the audience with its sorrow, humor, and even private look into the lives of this family as seen by the Priest who is a writer. This is a play about a graceful death.

Note this writer of the review has permission to quote from the play, but not to copy it or reprint it here. So that is enough to introduce the work, and give the reader of this review a sense of the working manuscript. The working manuscript, like the play itself that is a work brought to life on the stage, may be changing. That said earlier in this review formed as letter to the reader; suffice it to say in this post script that there are many lines that seem telling of the characters. Bill says at one point, “I had committed much too deeply to my own unhappiness.” Though it is in reading in manuscript form a moving thing, even contemplative and self-revealing to read, the audience on opening night thought it funny enough as a line to laugh.

This writer noted that the character of Bill was portrayed by the actor as Priest who reads lines like comedy.

Having the opportunity to read some of the reviews that were published prior to this article-review, one reviewer said the use of morphine, fed to Bill’s mother for pain, mixed with applesauce, was offered as a sacrament. There is no doubt that the character of Linda suffers from extraordinary pain, and if one believes pain a sacrament or its relief, they are missing a number of moving and more human like sacramental moments like those revealed and played at the moving ending of this work. There humanity is seen in a quest for comfort and rest, for the trial of Linda ends in such. That is a kind of sacrament to this writer. God is comforter as Holy Spirit, and Heaven is a place of joy and rest from labor of living. I think the medical side of the play is palliative rather than sacramental.



But the theme that is important to the play, and noted by its title, “How to Write a New Book for the Bible,” is revealed and made plain in this short speech by Bill who shows us that each of us as a part of humanity are important to God, that our lives as recognized and loved by the almighty are really part of a great Christian dialogue of Christ as part of the Trinity and our own mortal time on earth. To end the post script and this writer’s ode as almost sermon to the writer’s intent as seen by an audience member, this quotation from the play’s manuscript:








ADDENDUM

Playwright Bill Cain



  1. 1. It must be exciting to begin a new work as a playwright, developing its script and creating in so collaborative a way as theatre collaborates, especially in the Regional Theater like Berkeley Repertory where many plays have seen similar dramatic action. Will you speak to us a little bit about how and why you came to Berkeley Repertory Theatre for this play of yours, “How to Write a New Book for the Bible,” and why Berkeley?

The people at Berkeley Rep saw a workshop we did of the play at Theatre Works in Palo Alto, [California]. And Berkeley Rep was kind enough to invite us to work here. There have been three places in the Bay Area that have been very kind to me: Marin Theatre Company, Theatre Works, and Berkeley Rep. So I’m very grateful to the Bay Area. I think the community has been very receptive to my work.




  1. 2. As a Jesuit Priest in the Roman Catholic Church, your experience in living a life of Religious Order must be in some ways significantly aware of what it is to live in theater community. Speak with us some about the community of the theater, in specific that which you know well, and that is Regional Theater around the United States? Is there something special, even specially and distinctly religious or spiritual about the life and world of the theater person? This whether playwright, actor, or director—especially in light of your own profession of playwright-Priest and its vantage.



I’m a Jesuit priest, and Jesuits were founded not so much to find God in a church or monastery, but to find God in the world – specifically to find God in all things. And it’s at that point where a religious vocation and a theatrical vocation blend perfectly. The regional theatres of this country spend their time and energy trying to discover the soul of modern America. It’s a kind of secular sanctity. And it’s an honor to be invited to work in that setting.


  1. 3. The Premiere, let alone the rehearsal period of a new play must be exciting for the playwright to see as their “child” goes free and has a kind of life of its own. When reading about your teaching work on the internet, I see that you have interest in the role of the actor. How does this play excite an actor as a part, and as in the past, do you pull out many dramatic stops in the structure and dramatic form of the play? What parts of this play shall we as playgoers look for when coming to see, “How to Write a New Book for the Bible?”… Especially in the work of the actor or actors.


I think that what we seek when we go to the theatre is the freedom the actor achieves on stage. I think we are freed by seeing an actor courageously reach for the limits of his or her humanity. This inspires us and sets the bar for our lives when we leave the theatre. My new play, How to Write a New Book for the Bible, is about my parents, about their lives and their deaths. They lived passionately, and they died with grace. The actors in our cast are reaching for their limits. They’re confronting their passion for life, the conflicts of family, and the limits of death… reaching for something beyond. It’s an extraordinary cast, doing extraordinary work.



  1. 4. May we return to the subject of the theatre world and living the theatrical life? One reason for my strong interest is your profession as Priest and playwright, with emphasis on Priest. Talk to us a little about the sacramental nature of a dramatic work, and how it as art engages a theatre goer, and what you as a writer see as some of the effective dramatic scenes and methods you have found in your own work? This especially in your professional viewpoint in looking over your plays. But almost as importantly, what of this and the artistic form and such has caught the imagination and the involvement of play goers to your own plays? Will you give us one example or more?


I think the theatrical act of stepping on a stage is in and of itself a religious activity. Since How to Write a New Book for the Bible is autobiographical, one of the characters is a priest – and he says that the essence of writing is pointing. Saying, “Look there, look at that thing set apart. That’s holy. God cares about that.” So whether it’s Arthur Miller saying about Willy Loman, “Attention must be paid,” or Tennessee Williams pointing to Blanche Dubois as she discovers “Sometimes – there’s God – so quickly.” The theatrical act is always an act that makes the spiritual visible. The nature of a sacrament, the essence of a sacrament, is to make the invisible visible. In the Christian religion, bread and wine evoke the body of God. In theatre, it is the actors’ bodies that evoke the soul of humanity.



  1. 5. Thank you so much for giving us some of your time during this busy period when you are preparing in rehearsal for the Premiere of work (October 12, 2011) and playing from October 7 to November 30, 2011. Are you looking forward to going to Seattle, Washington afterward for another run of performance? Also if I have missed asking you something, tell us about it now.

Theatre is no longer the possession of a single city. When you enter theatre now, you become part of a national community. It’s an extraordinary thing in an age of individualism to be welcomed into this community. At the moment, I am lucky enough to have plays in Berkeley, Los Angeles, and soon in Seattle and Washington, D.C. It’s such an honor to have homes in these cities.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Interview: American northwest poet Luci Shaw

American poet Luci Shaw talks of living more years
and her poetry
by Peter Menkin



Here is the interview done with American poet Luci Shaw, of Washington State in the Northwest. This is another in a series of interviews with Anglican and American poets. (Luci Shaw is an Anglican—attends Episcopal Church in her Washington State.)

She decided to respond to questions by writing answers, and this interview reflects her request so that she could email her answers. She did so and the answers were received October 1, 2011. At 83 years old, with 30 books to her credit, she’s finished another work that she hopes to see published about what it means to get to be older in years. This writer asked her a little about the subject of her book proposal, and herewith the interview.



  1. 1. In your poem, “Mary Considers Her Situation,” there is a simplicity and at the same time reality to your statement about her as Mother of God. One question that so many poets are asked is what is their muse that brings them to write about a certain subject? That is my first question, but more, what is there about Mary as a figure in the story that captures the eye of your imagination? Will you share something of this vision and faith with us?


I find in Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her willing involvement in the drama of Incarnation, an almost infinite world of possibility for reflection and poetry. My collection, Accompanied by Angels, includes many poems about this ordinary, extraordinary young woman. She can be viewed from so many different angles.

I have always seen her as a model, to both women and men, of active participation in the work of God no matter how tricky or risky it appears to be. She said Yes to being pregnant with God by the Holy Ghost, well knowing what that might do to her reputation as an unwed mother. She considered the call of God on her to be paramount.

She is also an example to all of us who wish to know new birth and growth in our own lives. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 8, particularly in Eugene Peterson’s translation, I read:
“All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us. It’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We are also feeling
the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting.”

So, Mary is our example of fruitfulness. She also shows us what active submission of the finite to the Infinite looks like in an ordinary human being. She herself incarnates that obedience in a way the whole of Christendom remembers, if we reference all the religious art that features her through history.

In my poem, “Mary Considers Her Situation” (which will be featured in The Christian Century during Advent, 2011) I tried to be Mary, to get into her experience first-hand, to feel what this shocking event would evoke for her emotionally. I used the simple language of an untrained teenage girl. And her first thought, “What will I say to my mother?” echoes what an adolescent today would ask herself before the amazement of the moment overwhelms her. And then, the reality. She will be “split” both physically, in birth, and split from the rest of humanity by her unique role.





  1. 2. When I get in a conversation about getting older, and I am coming to my 65th birthday in October 2011, I try to admit to them and myself that this is a new stage in my life. But most people with whom I speak talk about aging and getting older as something to avoid, and their response is always, You are not so old. If I speak of someone in their 80s, this same kind of person says, They are not so old. I wonder what they will say if asked about someone in their 90s. My question for you because your latest book proposal is on getting into the later years of life, and you yourself are 83, what are a few of your thoughts and even poetic imaginings about aging? Is it such a fearful thing that so many of us must deny that getting old is even old at all?



Getting older is so universal, so inevitable, so impossible to avoid unless you die young, that it is surprising to me that so many are in denial about it. The common view of aging is that it is a state of weakness, pain, passivity and immobility in which meaningful life has ceased to exist. The book I have just written is a demonstration that the opposite is possible. That spiritual and emotional growth and insight can happen. That the accumulated wisdom of a life-time becomes available for younger generations as the “senior citizen” continues to engage in the community.
Undoubtedly getting older has its downsides. Energy declines, bodily infirmities appear and multiply, memory may weaken, but the essential spirit of creativity and joy can still survive and flourish. My strategy is to stay aware of the wider world through reading, films, music, and the company of kindred spirits of any age. Most of my closest friends are decades younger than I am, but our age is not the focus of conversation, or our common ground, and even the issues on which we differ make for lively intercourse. Disagreements can be enlightening and widen the view!



  1. 3. As someone who has lived in the great Northwest of the United States, Washington State, speak about some of the things that you like about the area where you live? Tell us how long you have lived there, and how you feel about being someone who lives and works in their own home? Do you find where you live a place of nurture and support as a poet?

John and I have lived in the Pacific Northwest, just south of the Canadian Border, for about fifteen years. Bellingham is not a large city, but being a college town with a great independent bookstore and a flourishing Episcopal Church has made it a place of satisfaction and fulfillment for us. We love sailing, tent-camping, gardening. I love the opportunities for photography in this town on the shore of Puget Sound with its islands and pebbled shores. Within an hour’s drive is Mt. Baker, snow-capped year-round, and Washington’s Cascade Range as well as the Coastal Range of British Columbia. In contrast to California where we lived for eight years, the landscape here is green and the soil rich. We have lots of rain (the reason for all the green!) and rain forests, but moderate temperatures both summer and winter.

When we moved here we built a home on the edge of a ravine flanked by tall cedars and ferns, and my study opens on a flowing stream. I like to say that I write best to the sound of running water! I love having my writing space at home, with all my books, my walls ornamented with winged creatures—angels, icons, engraving of birds (by Barry Moser), and one gryphon.

This town teems with artists of every kind. I have lots of poet and writer friends, and a local poetry group which meets sporadically. The bookstore has a Literature Live program that allows me to do public readings. Some of my writer colleagues live elsewhere but we stay in touch on the internet.




  1. 4. Sometimes we think that poetry about rhymes, and I notice that your work is not a work of rhyming for the sake of rhythm, but is a work that, nonetheless, sings to the reader. Is there something in the Bible that inspires your work, or brings to mind the poetic sensibilities that you bring out in the way of language in your own writing? What in the New or Old Testament sings for you? If you were to give some advice to young people of what to look for in developing their own work as a poet, even those in high school, what would you say in brief to them?




The poems I write seem to choose their own style, either formal or free. I find the iambic meter the most natural, echoing the human heart beat. Usually a phrase will arrive, from God knows where (literally) and I make a note of it and see where it is leading, or how it might develop. Words and phrases also jump out at me from the printed page of whatever I’m reading and demand to be used.
That is the art—the awareness of a possibility. The craft comes in the shaping of the idea or image, with its own rhymes, and assonances, and rhythms. I read new poems aloud, to test for line breaks and stanza breaks, but also for music and accessibility. My poetry is usually not “difficult,” though it may be dense and take several readings to unpack. (By the way, I haven’t written 30 books of poetry; rather 30 books in different forms, though never fiction.)

I have gifted poet friends with whom I workshop on line and in person, who read and critique my new poetry before I submit it for publication in a literary journal, or publish a new collection. I do the same for them. Several sets of skilled eyes and ears are an amazing help in perfecting a poem.

My advice for young poets? Avoid “poetic language” and dreamy generalizations. Paint a picture with vivid details for your reader. Let verbs and nouns do most of the work, using modifiers sparsely. Work for both inevitability and surprise in your writing. Read the work aloud to test it. Read lots of good poetry by others so that language and angles of insight get into your bones. Buy books of poetry to sustain the industry.


  1. 5. Talk to us a little bit about what appears to be an autobiographical work, “Leaf, Fallen?” What do you look for it to evoke in a reader, and what is it about the shortness of life you saw that resonates so that came to your mind in your own later years; and do you sometimes meditate on the many years passed and the years to come—even the end? I know this is a tough question, and to ask a poet to speak in an essay or expository manner seems almost a waste of time. But you are an essayist who has 30 books of poetry to her credit. Will you also tell us about your essay and expository writing, and how a poet comes to her subjects, those you’ve published? I am also fascinated to know more about your book proposal now at your agent’s about being in one’s senior years. This question seems a question of reflection and even a kind of savvy wisdom we expect of our elders—with hope. Yes, I do ask three part questions. So if you like, take each individually if you don’t find them related enough in their theme to make a fourth response.


I wrote the poem “Leaf, Falling,” as a recollection of my mother, who lived to be 99 ¾. As I get older myself, I’ve developed more of a fellow-feeling with her and a greater sympathy than in my youth. My brother and I were born, her only children, in her late forties, and she lived her life through us, a kind of proxy existence. She was a devout Christian, but legalistic to the point that our youthful explorations in faith and relationships and activities shocked and angered her. Her love was demanding enough to be crippling, and she was prone to depression, which colored our relationship negatively. My father was a totally different personality, bold, loving, risk-taking, a lover of art and poetry, and I carry his genes!

The poem uses the imagery of a leaf in Fall, because of its color, fragility and inevitably limited life span. My mother lived in Canada and I would travel from the States to the nursing home where she lived the last 30 years of her life. From age 70 on she would warn me of her imminent decease every visit, though she outlasted all her siblings and in-laws.

A lover of green in any form, I’m also a lover of leaves in any season, as well as the glorious skeletons of bare branches. Most of my books reflect this trend!




  1. From Luci Shaw's webpage
     
  2. If you were to pick three of your books of poetry, or if you prefer, name three of your own poems you liked a lot—what comes to mind now is okay—tell us something about them. In a more cleverly put way, talk to us about the mystery of the poem that you find of your own making and why this offers a sense of mystery when speaking to you? Hopefully, this will help your reader gain insight into your poetry, and poetry in general.

My most recent book of poems, Harvesting Fog, came about when I read a factoid in The National Geographic—that residents of Lima, Peru, get very little rain but are surrounded by a constant, clammy fog. To get more water, these clever people hang nets outside on which the fog and dew condenses. They can wring out these nets to augment their supplies.

It struck me that this technique is similar to the way a poet develops poetry. An idea or image is waiting in the air to be snagged and collected and aggregated with others, that the poet collects and drinks from in order to send a trickle into a world thirsty for beauty and meaning. This depends, of course, on a connection with the transcendent, an awareness of “things unseen” from the hand of God, who as a Creator created us to create. A friend once remarked to me: “Your gift is your spiritual discipline.” Thus using one’s gift to write or employ one’s craft is a way of saying thank you to God.

The Trend
for MKM

An autumn-colored sky like
the color of my friend Mary’s
hair. Like the just-turning-to-flame

leaves on the vine maple
we planted only last year,
a gift surprising as

a birthday cake even though
it’s expected. The mangoes in
the wooden bowl on the table

matches a color that flashes
from the bird’s brilliant head
at the bird feeder. Even

the bright mesh of the ratty
pot-scrubber in my hand
is glory leaking through.

Luci Shaw
9/30/11

Poet Luci Shaw discusses her book, “The Crime of Living Cautiously”





The Luci Shaw Fellowship

The Luci Shaw Fellowship from Image Journal on Vimeo.
The purpose of the Luci Shaw Fellowship is to expose a promising undergraduate student to the world of literary publishing and the nonprofit arts organization, and to introduce fellows to the contemporary dialogue about art and faith that surrounds Image, its programs, its contributors, and its peer organizations.


ADDENDUM





Christian Century poems





Getting it right

Sep 14, 2011 by Luci Shaw

Jesus might have died
a dozen times before he died.

An incidental death—tetanus
from a nail, a splinter.
A baptismal drowning.
A drink from a tainted well.
Rotten fish.
Desert thirst.
A stoning, a sudden
push over the edge,
or a falling overboard in a storm.
A choking by a demon on the loose,
a bar room brawl
at the local pub.
So when it happened, it seemed
like someone
got it right. Right time,
right reason,
for God to let it
happen.

Poetry

States of being

Mar 23, 2011 by Luci Shaw

Stability is greatly
overrated.
Why would I ever want to sit
still and smug as a rock,
confident, because of my great
weight, that I will not
be moved?
Better to be soft as water,
easily troubled, with
at least three modes
of being, able to shape-
shift, to mirror, to cleanse,
to drift downstream,
To roar when I encounter
the rock.


Poetry

The green shiver

Apr 25, 2011 by Luci Shaw

The forest floor bleak, choked
with old leaves, winter wet. Against
the evidence, buds on the wild dogwoods
glisten, listen for a signal, lining up
for bloom-time—when to burst and who’ll
be first? Every year, it’s all according
to weather, the wait for the heat-throb,
wind fresh through the naked
birch trunks longing to get green.
The pressure’s on, like listening for a
starter pistol, finger on the trigger.

Spring is wound tight enough to let go
any minute. Overarching the ravine,
the cedars start their annual scatter of yellow
sexual dust for the next generation.
The clematis resists her tedium of cold and brown,
cancels her winter sleep with a vertical thrust
up the trellis, like a slow shooting star.
How can we help but hope, sprouts
urged to fulfill a kind of promise—
a covenant with the world that in unfolding,
leaf tips flaring up and out, woody hearts pregnant
with bloom and blessing, we will drink rain, light,
heat for our emerald living. We face the sun
full on—its lavish encouragement for cold to lift,
shift, and move away. Holding on, ready for
that shiver, a sliver of thrill like a jade thread
through a labyrinth, when within us
something fresh and green explodes.











Emmaus road remembered



My camera’s eye waits to catch and hold

small chronicles of glint and shape and shine.

The subtle shadings in its blunt black

box all hold their breath until

a kind of resurrection happens on a screen

as esoteric magic translates them into sharp details

to see again, and show to friends.



Trust needs to know that sounds and sights

and words imprinted later, tell truth

about that couple, part of a holy triad

walking, listening, stopping for evening hunger–

did they get it right when they remembered?

Was he a phantom of their grief?

After the sudden vanishing did they

play with the crumbs, wondering?

How carefully did they gather those husks,

memorials of loaf and life and

resurrected bread? And can we learn from them

how to feast on mystery, taking a loaf

from the outstretched hand of the Unseen?





Luci Shaw

8-1-11


Psalm for the January Thaw Blessed be God for thaw, for the clear drops
that fall, one by one, like clocks ticking, from
the icicles along the eaves. For shift and shrinkage,
including the soggy gray mess on the deck
like an abandoned mattress that has
lost its inner spring. For the gurgle
of gutters, for snow melting underfoot when I
step off the porch. For slush. For the glisten
on the sidewalk that only wets the foot sole
and doesn’t send me slithering. Everything
is alert to this melting, the slow flow of it,
the declaration of intent, the liquidation.
Glory be to God for changes. For bulbs
breaking the darkness with their green beaks.
For moles and moths and velvet green moss
waiting to fill the driveway cracks. For the way
the sun pierces the window minutes earlier each day.
For earthquakes and tectonic plates-earth’s bump
and grind-and new mountains pushing up
like teeth in a one-year-old. For melodrama—
lightning on the sky stage, and the burst of applause
that follows. Praise him for day and night, and light
switches by the door. For seasons, for cycles
and bicycles, for whales and waterspouts,
for watersheds and waterfalls and waking
and the letter W, for the waxing and waning
of weather so that we never get complacent. For all
the world, and for the way it twirls on its axis
like an exotic dancer. For the north pole and the
south pole and the equator and everything between.












Peace on earthIn the tops of the cedars
ten crows are quarreling.
They do not believe in
conflict resolution. Now
they are flying off, glaring
at each other. Nothing
has been settled.


Soft Rock

You need only to live near mountains

to feel in your bones what age looks like. Take

the sandstone cliffs along our Northwest shore:

looking out over pebbled beaches glinting

with sea glass, their faces staring down the ocean,

never as pacific as it sounds. These bluffs

have offered themselves without rest to

the winds, the waters—rising, falling fifteen feet—

the extraordinary tides, rips that tear

water from water, that scour the shores.



This windless day, I am joined with

the low shelf I am sitting on. Warm

from noon sun, it’s pitted into stone lace

by particles whirled by wind for a million years

in the rocks’ shallow wounds. Any small grit

will do, grinding at the stone face, digging deeper,

carving empty eye sockets.



Lines of barnacles like white dried flowers

grow at the waterline, footnotes

to weather’s virtuosity.



No one is watching.

Surreptitiously I lean left, touch,

test with my tongue the etched boulder

by my elbow, and taste the sharp salt of storms.

In that brief kiss I think I even sample

the ochre-gray tint of sands that once

laid down their duned lives

to become these rocks of ages.



Luci Shaw

8-5-11

shawbiz@aol.com




Sparrow

This undistinguished, indistinguishable bird–

this prototype of insignificance —

this very moment’s sparrow at

our porch feeder—makes of his compactness

a virtue. From between the wires he pecks

the black sunflower seeds, neat head bobbing,

purposeful, economical, precise.

Watchful—peck and peek, peck and check.



I have seen scarlet tanagers, purple finches,

grosbeaks, red-footed gulls, even the arrogant

displays of peacocks. In his anonymity,

this small bird is who he is, his suit

brown-grey as damp dust, eyes bright beads.

This simple-ness, this pure unselfconsciousness,

this understated…this…Oh, the adjectives multiply,

but they are too large for this small one,

who humbles my own mud-brown heart.



Sometimes in my timidity I overcompensate

and try to sound large until I know such falsehood

is a betrayal.



He poises his nimble self to flick away, quick

as scissors—a cat, a squirrel,

my movement at the glass door.



I tilt my head for a better angle, and he’s gone,

off to his green barracks, hidden in the cedar branches

until, a minute later, his next feeder foray.





LS 8-5-11