The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Posted on by Breanda

One hundred years ago the renowned novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a farcical black humor short story he named The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It was written for Collier’s Magazine, a contemporary and competitor to the more popular Saturday Evening Post.

Later, it was one of the 12 stories chosen for his collection Tales of The Jazz Age

Ironically, what makes this short story so special is that not only does it have the most idiotic plot, it is badly constructed and poses so many questions of literary misogyny as to make one question if this was an oversight or blatantly intentional. It is also difficult to associate it with the same author three years later with The Great Gatsby, considered by many to be The Great Australian Novel.

While Fitzgerald wrote over 120 published short stories, he only wrote a few novels. Nearly all were thematic towards the vibrancy of the 1920’s jazz age. In contrast, Benjamin Button’s story begins in 1860 and concludes round about the late nineteen-twenties. In light of the storyline of ‘life reversal’ this may have been the entire point of the story. It’s hard to say. At the same time, it would be nice to think that like Samual Becket’s equally controversial play, Waiting for Godot, it could be the focus of a similar discussion. Why not tune in to the original story, dramatized for easy listening on Anchor.fm. and make your own decision?

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is available on fastfictionpodcasts at Anchor.fm

*****

In Dubious Battle

Posted on by Breanda

Everything Old is New Again.

I have just had the pleasure of listening to an audio story of John Steinbeck’s 1936 novel – In Dubious Battle. It explores the capitalist exploitation of migrant workers and their poverty at a time of stress, not long after the Great Depression It underlines the fact that there really was a time for unions.

We follow the life of Jim Nolan, a young man with nothing left to lose when he makes his way to the office of Harry Nilson, a recruiter for the Communist Party. Harry interviews Jim and learns his sad life story: he’s endured poverty, a lost sister, a drunk and violent dad, a mom who has checked out, and jail time on trumped-up charges.

While it makes an interesting counterpoint to many of the dystopian novels produced around the time the book was published, it also warns of the dangers of socialism/communism. Like The Grapes of Wrath, which was soon to follow in publication, Steinbeck presents matters from the common man’s perspective. At the same time, we can see that when at the lowest level of poverty, it is easy to be manipulated by leaders – from any source.

The audiobook is brilliantly narrated by Ted Stechschulte who brings the many diverse characters to life and allows the simplicity of Steinbeck’s writing to take us back to those less than ‘Good Old Days’ of the 1930s.

A film by the same name was produced by James Franco and Andrew Lervolino in 2016,

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Hemingway

Posted on by Breanda

Way back in my student days, I remember having an assignment involving a review for Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Old Man and the Sea. I knew nothing of either the book or the author at that time.

Traversing the university shelves I came across a stunning revelation about this slim 127-page volume. Not only were there hundreds of books – about the book – but most of them were twice or thrice the size of the original.

Such is the power of a world-renowned classical book.

Since then, of course, like the rest of the world, I have read, and now love, his litany of works, both novels, and short story collections. As opposed to the verbosity of earlier classics, his journalistic background promoted an economical use of words, which had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction.

His personal life became an icon of his era: masculine, hedonistic, and disillusioned with the face-to-face horrors of war. His reputation for wit and capacity for drinking continues today, and even as recently as 2011 was recognized in the Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris, and a year later, in 2012, Hemingway and Gellhorn, a bio-pic by Philip Kaufman on his marriage to Marta Gellhorn, while writing For Whom the Bell Tolls.

In fact, although he died over 50 years ago, for 41 years, ‘Fantasy Island’ at Key West has held a week-long LookAlike Hemingway Festival in his honor. The hundreds to thousands who form the annual procession are tantamount to his continued popularity., and later, in 2012, a biopic by Philip Kaufman on the writing of For Whom the Bell Toll

And, just to quote a few examples of his acerbic wit:

“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”

“You know what makes a good loser? Practice, ” Papa: A Personal Memoir

“The wisdom of old men is, they do not grow wise. They grow careful.” A Farewell to Arms

No animal has more liberty than the cat, but it buries the mess it makes.

and for the writers among us

“The first draft of anything is shit.” With Hemingway: A Year in Key West

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it. The Paris Review, 1958

*****

Meet the Author

Posted on by Breanda

“To all the clueless wannabe writers…”

atlasobscura.com

Yesterday I reacquainted with my past for a few pleasant hours. My past, being B.C. (Before Covid, and the event – a Book Launch at my local library.

It was publicized as ‘Meet the Author’, but having attended quite a number of similar events as both writer and reader, I know it to be a thinly disguised attempt to publicize and promote sales of a new book.

Way back, when BC was long in the future, supporting local writers was a regular social activity for me. My calendar would be full of opportunities to buy a book from the fountainhead of its creation. Indeed with most of my friends sharing a similar interest, we would take it in turn to purchase a book, which, when read, would be passed along our chain, before discussing its merits over a group coffee morning. A simple pleasure, costing little but time, and giving us all collective pleasure, while providing the author with a reason to return to the keyboard and begin another literary offering. (Just for the record, none of these images are from my local library – as if?

Yesterday’s event was a little similar insofar as our local library is a pleasant one, keen on providing light educational events that would encourage regular patronage to its environs. . While being modernized to acknowledge the advent of our digital world, it retains enough ambiance to encourage Mums with their kids, to attend Story Telling time, and begin their offspring’s adventure of living in worlds of literary creation.

About 20 of us turned up yesterday, mostly women, and listened to an enthusiastic events librarian ask the why, where, when, and how the book had been formulated from an idea to the finished page. The four-book author was pleasant, not overly polished in her replies, but nevertheless honest and engaged in response, and after 45 minutes we were also told that for the sum of $20.00 the author’s ten-year-old son Joshua was more than happy to sell us not only the new addition but any one of Mum’s other books. We all smiled, applauded, and were invited to have a ‘cuppa and a biscuit.’

At this point, everybody got up and foregoing this final pleasure of a “Cuppa” or purchase of a new book, dispersed their various ways into the library. I took out a $20.00 bill, then, thinking of my full shelves back home, checked with the librarian that the new book would soon be available as an mp3, and in the meantime, took an earlier book by the author out on loan. Not entirely satisfactory for her – but excellent for me.

As Britain’s former Prime Minister said, when booted out of office, “Such is Life.”

And for those of you curious about the heading, it is the dedication by the author, Missing You by Kylie Kaden

“To all the clueless wannabe writers – like me,”

And by the way, it’s a damn good read.

Gordo Revisited

Posted on by Breanda

Gordo Revisited by Hilary Kaiser.

Available on FastFictionPodcasts – Anchor.fm and all your favourite podcast platforms.

A young French girl from Paris marries a vet of WWII and moves to a cotton farm in rural Alabama. Life there is hardly the “American dream”, and relations with her husband and her in-laws eventually break down. What will she do and who will help her?

Duration: 36m.12s

Produced by Breanda Cross

Music: Empty Bottles – Mini Vandals.

Gordo Revisited has a multi-talented cast – see below

Rich Amada (“Joe” in the play) has acted in several stage productions. He’s also a lawyer and the author of more than 30 plays and musicals as well as the author of both fiction and non-fiction books. His latest publication is a romance novel titled “Ghosts Under the Bed,” a story about a Washington lawyer and a London radio presenter who start a romance via the internet. It’s a love story for the digital age. For booking information, contact: richamada@yahoo.com

Wanda O’Connell (“Mary” in the play) began her acting career in the Boston area and then moved to NYC in 1996 where she performed on stage and in film for the next 23 years.  Wanda now lives in Paris, France, teaches English to children, and continues to pursue her artistic interests of theatre, drawing, and music. For booking information, contact: woconnell33@gmail.com

Andrew Randolph (“Bill” in the play) is excited to be a part of this project as his first podcasting experience. A recent graduate from the University of South Carolina Aiken with a B.A. in theater, he is currently working his first professional contract at The Lost Colony in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Past credits include Dwight/Gordon (Dead Man’s Cell Phone), Faustus (Dr. Faustus), Jess (The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged). For booking information, contact: randolphat7@gmail.com

Shugga D. Rosenbloom (“Ruby” in the play), who lives in the south of France, is an American entertainer, actor, jazz and gospel singer, writer, dancer, and educator. Hailing originally from Chicago, she has traveled the globe and says she is “a lover of life, children, and truth.” For booking information, contact: shuggadrosenbloom@outlook.com

Lucie Subra (“Danielle” in the play) is an 18-year-old French and Lebanese high school student who plans to study drama classes at university. She began acting at twelve years old and loves it. She says that her theater corresponds to the motto: “Life is an improvisation. You can create who you want to be tomorrow! ” For bookings, contact: soubralucie@gmail.com

Joe Wilkins (“Man in the Train” in the play) Joe worked as a professional actor for many years in Boston, New York, and Atlanta.He played featured roles in TV series such as I’ll Fly Away, In the Heat of the Night, and Savannah. Joe was part of the roll-out campaign for Coke Zero in which he plays a real estate lawyer. His ad for Coke Zero still lurks in the forgotten corners of the internet and will probably remain there until the end of time. Love brought Joe to Paris where he keeps his toe in the acting pool by working with various film schools and play reading groups. Joe is an avid fisherman and competitive shotgun shooter. He can do his age in pushups, which is a lot!  For booking information, contact: wilkins.joe224@gmail.com

Bard’s Night Out

Posted on by Breanda

by Patti Cassidy

Starting Wed. 6/22/22, Patti Cassidy’s Shakespeare at a Séance play, “Bard’s Night Out”, will be broadcast for one week only on Shoestring Radio Theater! Enjoy! https://www.shoestring.org/

And for a fascinating experience, also check out Breanda’s production of the same play at https://fastfictionpodcasts.com/the-bards-night-out/ !

Introducing Daisy Buchanan

Posted on by Patti Cassidy

by Patti Cassidy

When you’re a true Gatsby fan, as I am, and a writer, as I am also, it’s bound to lead you down the garden path to writing a spin-off of the original eventually.

This small play, which has been produced both in the US and Canada, combines both biographical and literary elements. It was great fun for me to imagine what would happen if Zelda Fitzgerald actually spurred the legendary story that F Scott considered his masterpiece.

Enjoy this production which was produced in the middle of the pandemic, with Director – Deidre Purcell, Zelda Fitzgerald – Mia Giatrelis, and Daisy Buchanan – Hattie Fisher.

The best-laid plans of Mice … and Playwrights.

Posted on by Debbie Wiess

by Debbie Wiess

Life is full of its ups and downs, twists and turns, just like any story a playwright like me would create.  And then there are the curveballs, too, one may be tossed. Recently I have found that Life has had some additional twists and turns, as well as its share of curveballs. Certainly, these days of Spring 2022, there is a lot going on in the world, to say the least with Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, global warming, inflation…and in mid-Feb my father died very suddenly and unexpectedly. 


Just a few weeks prior to my father’s death, I finalized plans to go on a 3-week trip to Europe leaving in mid-March.  I was to present one of my plays OF THYME AND ROSEMARY, a conversation between James Joyce and Marcel Proust over wine, in French in a cultural center in SW France on March 17, Saint Patrick’s Day.  


I would also be visiting a friend in the area and then traveling with her for 2 weeks to SE France and NW Italy.  In Italy, we were to spend several days on the island of Elba off the Tuscan coast.  I like to write about historical and literary subjects.  And for a long time, I have been interested in Napoleon and have wanted to write a play about him.  I was intrigued to visit the island he reigned over for 10 months as its Emperor, May 1814-February 1815, and see if that could be a subject to write about regarding him.  Attending the presentations of my plays and doing research is often a component of my travel plans.  And I find traveling can be very inspirational. 


OF THYME AND ROSEMARY (Joycean for “Of Time and Memory”) is the one-act follow-up to the full-length play I wrote about the 2 authors called PROUST & JOYCE AT THE MAJESTIC.  That first play recounts the night they met at a dinner party in Paris in May 1922.  And the second play is about their second meeting because I knew that these two iconic literary figures had much more to say to each other.  In the play, they discuss Time & Memory of course, Life & Death, Art & Literature, their work, lives… and health issues.  The play has been presented in 5 countries.  I updated for the 100th anniversary of the publication of Joyce’s novel Ulysses this year. It will be presented at Bloomsday on June 16 this year in Montreal and the James Joyce Tower in Sandycove Ireland.

This was the third time I have presented one of my plays in this cultural center in SW France.  They like my work there and I have an open invitation now to present my projects.  It is not an easy thing to present and prepare a play across an ocean.  One needs to cast locally and deal with all sorts of logistics.  Fortunately for me, I have an energetic, outgoing friend on the ground there.  She is a natural producer and has helped me enormously to connect the dots and put all the details in place.  We had planned to rehearse the afternoon after my arrival in France and then review things prior to the event a few days later.  We would be presenting the play as a staged reading with the actors in outfits to evoke their characters and script in hand.  It is a very effective way to present that requires much less time and effort to prepare.


Travel is full of anticipation, and excitement, and these days in particular not some little concern.  And when one prepares for a presentation, there are all sorts of details to sort out.  As I was finishing my packing, I received an email from my friend letting me know the actor playing Joyce was in the ER.  My heart sunk and my mind raced, I was very concerned for him, but also wondered what I would do if he could not go on stage.  Well, the motto in theatre is “the show must go on” and one way or another the show would go on even if I had to read both parts myself.  Happily, later, when at the airport I got an update email from my friend letting me know that the actor was ok, and would be ready to go the next day for our rehearsal. Our rehearsals went very well and I was enormously pleased with the long-distance casting that we did, the actors were just perfect for their roles.  And when we went up on Saint Patrick’s Day we had a full house and a very enthusiastic audience.  


After basking in the glow of a successful presentation of my work, shortly after that I learned that my friend and I had been exposed to Covid at a dinner party earlier in the week.  We then got tested, and while I was negative, my friend was positive and we then had to contact everyone we saw subsequently.  We also had to put off and then cancel our 2-week trip, which was a great disappointment, especially regarding Elba which I was all set to do research.  Fortunately, my friend had only minor symptoms and later that following week we planned a shorter week-long trip in S France, which was lovely and provided some inspiration. I will have to take that trip to Italy another time.  In the meantime, I have been reading up on Napoleon and Elba in preparation.

Life in Indie Theatre

Posted on by Karin Fazio Littlefield

by Karin Fazio Littlefield

What is indie theatre? It isn’t Cats. It isn’t Hamilton. It’s small. It’s low-budget. It’s a lot of multi-tasking by a small group of people. You’re never just the playwright. If there’s an unforeseen problem on opening night, you’re going to figure out how to fix it. If an actor fails to show up for some reason, guess who goes on?

But I didn’t know any of that back in my early twenties. I was a theatre nut – strictly an audience member. Luckily born in NYC. I’d pick up the Village Voice at the newsstand next to the bookstore where I worked and circle which shows I was going to check out that week.

One day my co-worker at the bookstore asked me to attend a rehearsal of Hedda Gabler he was directing. I was slightly frightened at the thought of being the only audience member. Then when the show was over, he beckoned me to come backstage. I walked up to the stage and paused. I had never stepped beyond the first row of seats. I could feel an invisible wall between the world of the spectator and that of the… participant. He reached out to me and I crossed the threshold.

And I can’t ever go back. That was it. All of a sudden, I found myself doing all sorts of impossible things.

So what’s it like?

It’s walking down the center aisle of a packed house when the stage manager fails to show up. Like a stewardess moving down the plane, looking for a pilot. Can anyone fly a plane? Or work a soundboard? Sweat gathering at my brow, beginning to drip down my face, my eyes searching for someone who will understand my panic. I can’t operate the light board or the sound board. Neither can the director. A woman notices my distress. Do you need help? She follows me back along the aisle, around the stage and up the ever-narrowing staircase to the booth.

Thankfully she can operate the light board. The AWOL stage manager has the sound cues with him so we have to junk all the cues. Except the sound of a phone. A phone ringing on multiple occasions is essential to the plot; it cannot be junked. The phone has to ring.

The plan: I will cue up a ring tone on my phone as loud as it goes and I will hang out of the small window in the booth as far as I can so the audience can hear the phone ring. The director will stand behind me, holding on to me and squeezing when it’s time for me to hit the ring tone. I have to do this five times during the performance. I am sweating buckets and I don’t have a rubber band to tie up my hair so before I dangle out the window, I grab a bulldog clip that holds the pages of the script together and squish all my hair into that. But we get it done. And the show goes on.

It’s putting on an impromptu performance of a play while stranded in the Yukon. And having to go on when you are most definitely not an actor and the thought chills you to the bone.

It’s realizing your actor has skipped a page of dialogue and there is a critic in the house tonight.

It’s staying up all night because you are making several batches of risotto for the actor to serve on stage or painting fake pomegranates or distressing clothing or making a cardboard axe that looks so real the guard stops you on the way in.

It’s having various stages of rotting flowers in your apartment because you need various stages of decaying flowers for the performances.

It’s painting text and designs on someone’s back for the poster of the play.

It’s driving around NYC with a giant free-standing door tied to the roof of your car because there is no backstage area to store your set.

It’s making tutus out of police tape in Costa Rica

It’s taking toe nail polish off the little girls’ feet for their contemporary dance scene.

It’s talking to someone about trimming the unruliness of their privates before their nude scene.

It’s adrenaline and despair, joy and pain, the trivial and the profound. It’s absurd.

It’s life.

Listen to Karin on PodBean – We’re Theatre People.

On Time Warps and Resurrection

Posted on by Patti Cassidy

by Patti Cassidy

So you’re a failing playwright and win a contest that sends you to Macbeth’s Inverness Castle in Scotland for a week or two. The joint’s been turned into an Air BNB and you meet the oddest people on the parapets at midnight.

Some setup, eh?

It was my first shot at an audio play. The small, select audience (friends, actors, and friends of the actors) thought it was a hoot. And, by chance, I had a spectacular cast to give it a whirl. Of course, I was seduced to keep on going. That was four years ago.

Why do I bring this up now?

Because I just happened to run across the script in the cobwebbed “radio plays” folder on a retired external hard drive. It was like resurrecting the dead. Like mainlining rejuvenating serum. Like jumping into a time warp. Only four years ago, but (to cliché it) a lifetime, too.

I was shocked at how much I’ve learned since that freshman attempt at a brand new medium. And I was jolted to realize how audio drama has opened up my world (literally).

I think of myself as a visual person, but this playing with sound seems to have touched something basic in me. I started thinking in sound. I started to pay attention more.

Here are a couple of lessons I’ve learned along the way. I share them for free!

1) Make sure you use your character’s name every once in a while so listeners will have a clue as to who is being strangled, kissed, or coming through the door.

2) Define characters by their voices as well as words. Doesn’t matter who plays the Monroe part, as long as the breathing is right. Grit and gravel reporters, and refined diction of a tenured prof and maybe an accent or two will really make a story move on.

3) Music and sound effects are marvelous- as long as they’re not overused and don’t overlap. No use confusing the story unnecessarily.

But I digress.

Macbeth’s Air BNB has snagged me again. I think it’s time to revive it. Something crazy this way comes and I’m about to let it loose.

(See the post on Multitasking earlier. You’ll understand what I mean!)