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In the years I attended the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA), we were not allowed to contend against other theatre troupes in competition; the most prestigious competitions were the Trumbauer Festival and the Thespians Festival (the latter of which we also did not have as a student organization). At the time, I suppose, I didn’t question it though I knew others were angry. My suspicion is our teacher didn’t want us picking up bad habits that did not come from her training (she also made it almost impossible to “moonlight” in other local shows. Once I became a drama teacher in Alabama, though, and sent my high school to such competitions, I understood more her reasons. Like most awards and prizes, such competitions are frequently riddled by nepotism. For example, Bob Jones High School won virtually everything during my tenure at Pinson Valley High School. You learn very quickly where you are on the ladder. I want it known for the record, two of my kids won first place in a reader’s theatre scene from Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys, but that was the exception and not the rule.

Me, hiding somewhere amongst the judges.
Me, hiding somewhere amongst the judges.

I enjoyed judging both festivals (if you took her group, you had to judge), though. The school names were blind though the world of theatre is so small, I didn’t know how blind it was. But, as for me, it was a new world. I’ll never forget the feeling I had when I got my way and awarded 3rd place in the Solo Female Musical category to a young girl who, when she accepted it, couldn’t have been more floored. But even though she did not act much of the scene, the way she sang “I Dreamed a Dream” made me cry my eyes out. We were split on third place (there were clear winners for 1st and 2nd), but I made my point known and I hope that is something that still shines bright in that young woman’s high school career.

 

Recently, through my affiliation with Hillside Church in our neighboring town of Dora, I got to judge another, much smaller competition. Sponsored by The Alabama Youth Theatre Experience, all the kids were making their way from across the state to compete in the Spring JAMboree, a solo, duo, trio, and ensemble competition. It was an extremely well-run competition (always appreciated by the judges, who end up giving ten hours or more of their time) and I had a blast. Seeing young people bring material to life is always heartening and, though the theatre world has changed significantly, I got exposed to numbers from shows with which I was generally unfamiliar (I judged Advanced Musical Theatre Solo, Division 2 Duets, Advanced Monologues, and we all joined together for the trio and ensemble numbers). I also go to see some really talented kids (and had no embarrassing situations with the proverbial stage moms).

 

Some memorable moments:

Student actors Emory Musick, LeAnn Hall, and Dax Denton with their honors.
Student actors Emory Musick, LeAnn Hall, and Dax Denton with their honors.

1)    The occasional song from the classic era. While most numbers were from fare like Hadestown, Dear Evan Hansen, and Beetlejuice, there was an occasional solo that came from a classic. One was “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun,” one of the great numbers from Irving Berlin’s only real “integrated musical,” Annie Get Your Gun. Though it won 2nd place (we strictly went by the numbers on the score sheets—though we wrote notes on the back for the teacher to share with the students), it was a delight—and performed by LeAnn Hall, a real up-and-comer.

A memorable scene from Ghost Light Theatre Company's Come from Away
A memorable scene from Ghost Light Theatre Company's Come from Away

2)    The one time a classic play decided a competition. Some of the performers committed the cardinal sin of acting a monologue from a monologue book (i. e. not a cut from a play, which is harder but the only place you can truly show if you can act). But, after my judging team was wrangled last minute into judging Advanced Monologues, I desperately needed to go to the bathroom. It turns out everyone was looking for me because there was a tie for first place. When I finally returned and was shown my choices, I knew which one was right. A young actress performed a monologue from Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, a mid-century American classic by, perhaps, our country’s greatest female playwright. And she nailed it. Every moment. After the competition, she came up to me and thanked me, saying she had never won anything. “You deserved it,” I replied—and she did.


Celebrate young people in the arts!
Celebrate young people in the arts!

3)    The time I had to judge the harshest. While the score sheets were made in such a way that you could not truly hurt anyone, we did have the back page to write encouragements and things to work on. A young actress performed a monologue from Larry Kramer’s great American play The Normal Heart (lovingly rendered into a television film by HBO). While it was a daring choice—and I was thrilled a young person knew who Larry Kramer was—Kramer was writing in a time before our own where issues of gender were seen in the grand scheme simpler to deal with in a corporate way. Kramer wrote angrily and movingly about the number of men who succumbed to AIDS. Above any other demographic, they were the most affected in English-speaking nations and the monologue should have been performed by a man—not a woman—because they have no direct sense of the horror of that time and can never understand, even if they share characteristics in sexuality. I was gentle, but firm. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t give the theatre back that much.

 

So, it was a fantastic competition. I got to meet wonderful artists, see great young talent, and encourage adolescents to soar in the arts. A win, all in all.


Photographs, courtesy Hillside Church.

I will never forget hearing the story of Sophokles’ Oedipus the King in drama class. I rushed to find a copy of the play immediately—the whole violent ending sounded exciting to someone all of eleven or twelve. Imagine my dismay, then, as I found words I couldn’t find a rhythm in and that all the cool stuff takes place offstage—meaning Jokasta’s suicide and Oedipus’ gouging of his eyes. Later, I learned this absence of violence onstage was a part of a moral stance Greeks applied to their theatre. While to us, the Festival of Dionysos would have seemed like a civic event, the Super Bowl, and a church service all rolled into one, it was, above all, a religious event. The violence seemed too much to expose.

The man. I mean, the kid.
The man. I mean, the kid.

While there are no real moral choices that affect today’s dramatic writing, except for those whose purpose is purely political, I shall make a decent proposal that will all at once seem impossible and a bit hypocritical as I acted in plays with regularity from the time I was five to the time I was eighteen or so. I’ve also completed a play for children recently and, I suppose, kids have been on my mind because of a smattering of true crime documentaries on streaming services that take on childhood celebrity in all of its abject ugliness.

 

For every well-adjusted former child star like Hilary Duff, there are multiple Judith Barsis, Lindsay Lohans, and Demi Lovatos. In between, there are those who somehow remained grounded in reality and those who nose-dived like Amanda Bynes, there are also Culkins whose parents grow rich from their children’s labor. I think we all know it’s a nasty business, but when a cute kid shows up on a Netflix movie or a Nickelodeon show, we are bound to be charmed by them—their talent, their tenacity, their precociousness. Some are natural comedians (Kenan Thompson) and some are born tragedians (Henry Thomas) and some are annoying as all get-out, but you can’t help but smile at their talent. As we now know, behind those smiles are an awful lot of pain.

All that, and a bag of chips.
All that, and a bag of chips.

I was never a kid actor on screen, but I’ve grown up alongside those who were my contemporaneous heroes. I’m sure few people didn’t envy Macaulay Culkin with a house all by himself, let alone how famous he was. Then again, none of us were surprised by his up and down trajectory. Though he doesn’t make headlines anymore—his brother has become an actor of a different caliber. Hard to imagine given he was Fuller in Home Alone, but it’s true.

 

Working as hard as we did at a performing arts high school, many of us were burned out by the time we graduated. Some of my classmates have gone back to amateur theatrics, but for the most part, they have professional jobs and normal-as-it-can-be-lives. Certainly, theatre training is life training. One learns to walk and speak with confidence, work as a team, carve out one’s niche in the world. So, kids need scripts to learn from if they want to pursue a career as an actor. But I would be remiss if I didn’t say I don’t think they should be in the industry.

 

It is indeed hard to imagine a world without Charlie Bucket or Kevin MacAllister or Pete and Pete, but I often wonder if we did not include children in our screenplays and teleplays, if they waited until eighteen to go into professional work, how much more well-rounded they would be—some would have even been alive today. Yes, Drew Barrymore’s performance in E. T.: The Extra Terrestrial is enduring, and I’m glad there is a record of her giving an adequate performance (she never would again), but I also envision a Drew who, instead of running headlong into a world of debauchery, was a normal kid—played Viola Spolin games, trained in a drama school, or went to a pubilc school where, at the very least, she would have learned the good and the bad of the world without necessarily falling into drug addiction. Would she have emerged a more interesting actress than we have with us presently? More importantly, if she were absented from Hollywood, would she even be an actress? What if Drew Barrymore, even with that dramatically royal name, ran a patisserie or a daycare center?

 

I once read a beautiful Rolling Stone piece about the essential tragedy of Michael Jackson, a marvel as a kid and an adult (and, consequently, an unnatural fascination with the childhood he never had. In it, the writer imagined a world where Jackson might have been born into a different family—a family, perhaps, that did not have the drive and the whip. He pictured him singing in a saloon with only a few hearing that gorgeous voice. He described a tear coming from his eye—because everyone wants recognition—but he also described someone who had a better chance of getting out of his fifties than the average kid in the spotlight.

 

What if, like the Greeks, we did something decent and made attempting celebrity something for folks who might have more brain cells to make good decisions? Would there still be those who crash and burn? Of course. Would there be as many? I don’t think so. Children (those 17 and younger) are not equipped to make important life decisions regarding their future, their work, their identity. I couldn’t very well recommend anyone seriously put their child in an American public school knowing how they are and how they are run, but I often wondered if I had been in more regular surrounding—would I be able to play Ibsen? Maybe not. Would I be better at managing my life, though? You bet.

The Prince, before the fall.
The Prince, before the fall.

Though there are still films which premiere only in cinemas, you know from my previous criticism of today’s film landscape the movie theater is a place I don’t inhabit much anymore and I, thus, often wait for those few movies I want to see (Heretic, etc.) to show up on a streaming service. I thought I was going to have to wait quite a while for a “free ticket” to last year’s Conclave, which had an excellent trailer and has a fine cast. But it was given to us early by Amazon Prime Video probably due to the death of Francis and the upcoming election of a new Pope for the Catholic church.


Yeah, I don't like it, but there's never too much Tucci.
Yeah, I don't like it, but there's never too much Tucci.

Conclave should have been the thinking person’s The DaVinci Code. Instead, it pretends to be a political thriller and mystery for all but the last few moments of the running time in which it tacks on a silly ending as a nod to progressives in the church who are trying to revise its views on subjects such as gender and sexuality, which (admittedly) Francis at least discussed openly even if no one has happy with where he sided. That is what a leader of a vast body does—pleases no one.

 

As a former Seminarian and student of Christian history, I can echo what we all know: the Catholic church thinks in terms of centuries, not years. Not until the Second Vatican Council (1962-’65) did the church really do what it should have done after Martin Luther’s Reformation nearly five hundred years before—that is, allow members in their various lands to hear the liturgy in their own language rather than Latin. Of course, Vatican II irritated as many as it enriched. Famously, traditional Catholics can be severe with their religion, one which lost much of its mystery with the 20th century Council (the first in over one hundred years—centuries, see?).

 

We have often seen believing Catholics (fewer each year who speak English) not interested in questioning, showing little depth of Scriptural knowledge, and believing it is through the church they are saved. Now that the 20th and 21st centuries have produced volumes of excellent theology among liberal Catholics, Biblical knowledge among the fold is stronger, but the faith has been hindered by that same theological work (issues of pseudepigrapha, etc.). In short, the Catholic church is becoming less and less relevant to society and yet stories from its landscapes continue to dot film and literature because they are still the largest body of Christians on Earth.

 

In the 21st century alone, we have had John Patrick Shanley’s play/film Doubt, the Oscar-winning Spotlight, Alex Gibney’s devastating documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, and less worthy efforts like HBO miniseries The New Pope which still attract people who have an interest in either preserving the Church as it is (or was) or to truly liberate itself from centuries of being oppressive, tyrannical, and abusive to others and its own kind. Such is the background for the setting of Conclave.

He who should not be Pope, I guess.
He who should not be Pope, I guess.

Many in the Curia want Stanley Tucci’s progressive character to become the next leader, some Sergio Castellitto’s more traditional stance. In the middle is the leader of the conclave, played wonderfully by Ralph Fiennes, who is looking older and seems to embody the tired church in his wrinkle-browed graven face, plus there is another conflict which might include John Lithgow’s character sending the late Pope to his untimely death, but nothing ever much becomes of that. Instead, the Pope’s secret liberal leanings reveal an unknown Cardinal—a Mexican working in Afghanistan—who arrives at the conclave. Seemingly a young man out from the shadows, eventually this Benitez is chosen as the next Pope. Since this has all been a novel and a widely seen film, I have no problem exposing the ending, which is ridiculous, cheap, and fantastical. 

The New Pope. Certainly better than Jude Law, but not appreciably.
The New Pope. Certainly better than Jude Law, but not appreciably.

Benitez turns out to be intersex, born with unseen female reproductive organs, and he reveals he chose to remain how he was born without surgery because God made him that way. There is so much au current muddling in the last ten minutes of the movie that I wanted to hurl the remote at the screen. Not because I sympathize with liberal Catholics, but because the idea of anyone (even Fiennes’ character) knowing this information and allowing Benitez to be Pope is complete nonsense. If it took from the 4th century of the Common Era to 2002 for the church to even begin fessing up to its wrongdoing in its worst violation to our society, what makes you think Benitez could ever be Pope? His only strong suit is that he is new blood and will most definitely retain his celibacy. Otherwise, the ending is a slap in the face to audiences, the church, and to intelligence itself. It is as I described it: tacked on, pasted like a slacktivist meme at the end of a movie that should never have been boring, but is.

 

Conclave places you in a strange headspace. We know though we do not admit that the Catholic stronghold on Christian thinking is gone despite whatever numbers they claim. So, you begin the piece wondering who cares about the Catholic church (?) and leaving it hating the people who are trying to reform it because I think it’s safe to say at this point, that a large population is getting more and more tired of even the word gender. And, sadly, the other “G” word—God.

 

What is about to happen soon in Vatican City is bound to be more interesting than anything in this movie. After all, major religious figures and some who are also criminals, will be in a conclave to decide the next few years, which will never go to someone young. The church is intelligent enough to know a young person, even devout, would bring the whole thing toppling to the ground. Maybe that would be a good thing, but it won’t happen. In a minor play and movie, Mass Appeal, from the 1980s, a young liberal Priest in Training says the ultimate purpose of the church is to become obsolete, meaning that the kingdom of Heaven should be practiced on Earth, and it will no longer be necessary. Given the church’s crimes, I hope that day is soon, but this is my own position and a contentious one. One hopes movies like Conclave will also be obsolete when people get back to wanting to tell good stories that are grounded in the reality that is, whether we like it or not.


Goodnight, Frankie.
Goodnight, Frankie.

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