Actions Have Consequences

Rote learning can go a long way toward reinforcing one's memory. Whether that means leaving one's eyeglasses in the same place, color coding one's keys, or developing a system that clearly determines which pills should be taken at specific times, higher levels of success can be achieved with repetitive tasks by replacing spontaneity with established routines that can, just like a macro, lead to greater reliability.

Back when I was a frequent flyer, I once returned to my apartment and spent ten minutes searching for my shoes (I knew I had been wearing them when I came home). Eventually, I looked down at the floor, realized they were still on my feet. That night I had myself a good chuckle.

Nevertheless, memory is a curious phenomenon. As people age, short-term memory becomes increasingly problematic while long-term memory starts to seem like a geriatric superpower. Names and faces of people from adolescence come to much quicker and much more clearly than remembering what one ate for lunch several days ago. Success with what were once common activities of daily living is no longer guaranteed.

• In an earlier phase of my life, I could effortlessly commit many names and numbers to memory. However, once electronic calendars became a common tool, I learned to rely on hard drives and the mystical power of the cloud to keep track of critical data. Over the years, I've realized that, without having to write things down or repeat them numerous times, there is no way I can possibly remember everything planned for the next week or month.
• Soon after I stopped transcribing medical reports, I realized that my typing had deteriorated because (a) I was no longer focused on translating a physician's mush-mouthed dictation, (b) I was no longer getting paid on a production (gig) basis, and (c) I was often slouching or sitting further away from the computer.
• On those rare occasions when I go on a cleaning spree and think that I'm brilliantly reorganizing items in my kitchen or workspace, I learn (the hard way) that, even though I've put some things in the best possible place where I will be sure to find them, after turning everything upside down and inside out, what I've really accomplished is setting up a series of time-consuming scavenger hunts.

Learning to let go of ingrained behaviors takes a while (just like learning not to rush to answer a phone in an age of robocalls). These days, if I run into someone I haven't seen in years (or encounter someone I should know in a context different from our usual meetings), I may recognize their face but struggle to remember their name. I'll usually lock in on it within three hours but, like many seniors, I've learned to gracefully accept this phenomenon as a natural part of the aging process. As Daniel J. Levitin explains in his recent OpEd piece: "Everyone Knows Memory Fails as You Age, But Everyone Is Wrong."

Numerous dementia studies have revealed that many seniors respond enthusiastically to songs they remember from their past. It doesn't matter whether they remember certain hymns from church, songs they used to dance to, music that was once popular on the radio, or songs they sang in school. For me, the Broadway catalog has remained fresh in my heart in ways that continue to surprise me. The past week was no exception.

What struck me was the power with which Oscar Hammerstein II's lyrics from musicals he wrote with Richard Rodgers resonated with today's politics and some plays I recently attended. As I watched Nancy Pelosi "boldly go where no man has gone before" by tearing up her copy of Trump's recent State of the Union speech before a worldwide audience, a little known song from The King and I started rattling in my mind. Listen carefully to its lyrics and you'll understand why.


As journalist Lucian K. Truscott IV recently wrote in an article on Salon.com:

"Do the words 'exercise of emergency powers' send a chill down your spine? If not, you've got company. Put on your MAGA hat and sign up for the rally and learn the words to 'Donald Trump Uber Alles.' Or call up your friends and turn out and vote. It's one or the other."

As the Trumpian Anschluss continues, it's interesting to think of memorable moments from musical theatre that have focused our attention on Nazis. For its sheer satirical genius, perhaps the most indelible impression was left by Mel Brooks in his 1967 film, The Producers. After 2001's blockbuster film-to-stage adaptation of The Producers opened on Broadway starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, the 2005 stage-to-film version contained the following version of "Springtime For Hitler."


When Cabaret opened on Broadway in 1966, audiences were justifiably rattled to see Nazi armbands onstage twenty years after World War II had ended. Bob Fosse's 1972 film version of Cabaret included this chilling segment:


If we sharpen our memory, Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1959 musical, The Sound of Music, was the first to transform a naive young Austrian boy into a brainwashed Nazi. Although Rolf Gruber's character became far more threatening in the 1965 film version that starred Julie Andrews, his one musical number was lovingly lampooned during 2017's Broadway Backwards.

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Theatre Rhinoceros recently presented a reading of The Radicalization of Rolfe, a new play by Andrew Bergh which puts a very different spin on the fate of the blond-haired, blue-eyed, deeply confused Hitler youth from The Sound of Music. In Bergh's play, Rolfe Gruber (Hunter Nelson) is still a bicycle telegraph messenger boy who frequently makes deliveries to an Austrian military officer's estate, where he feigns an attraction to Captain von Trapp's eldest daughter, Liesl. For some strange reason, Rolfe has never given much thought to the mechanics of having sex with Liesl, whose main attraction seems to be that she "smells clean and bright, like edelweiss."

Perhaps that's because he's become extremely close to Johann Schmidt (Mario Mazzetti), a university student who, like Rolfe, likes to frequent the Gentlemen's Athletic Club. When they're not working out, they're making out in Johann's apartment.

Unfortunately, Rolfe has also caught the eye of Herr Zeller (William Giammona), a Nazi operative who suggests the young blond to think about marrying Liesl in order to plant a spy within the Captain's home where the butler, Franz (Travis Maider), has proven to be remarkably inept as a spy. Franz works side by side with Frau Schmidt (Anne Hallinan), an elderly housekeeper who was been in the Captain's service for many years. As fate would have it, her nephew, Johann, recently came to Salzburg after some trouble with the police, during which he was labeled as a Communist and a deviant (popular Nazi euphemisms for "homosexual").

Herr Zeller's scheme to arrange a politically potent marriage between the Captain and Baroness Schrader has been stymied by the arrival of a new governess for the Captain's children -- a nun from Nonnberg Abbey who has become a major distraction. Though Johann and his aunt try to warn Rolfe about the danger he is faces, the wide-eyed messenger boy is stubborn, naive, and easily manipulated by Herr Zeller.

Bergh's play (which has been presented at the 2016 New York International Fringe Festival, Island City Stage in Wilton Manors, Florida) makes sly references to the 1959 musical by alluding to Rolfe's age as "17 going on 18" and letting Frau Schultz react to a particularly loathsome challenge from Franz with the words "I have no interest in climbing that mountain." As directed by Devin Goodman, even a reading makes Rolfe's destiny clear when Herr Zeller informs the boy that Johann disappeared just before the the Nazis closed the border with Switzerland, Frau Schmidt has been detained for questioning, and Captain von Trapp's home has been seized. He then gives Rolfe a pink triangle to sew on his shirt if he's unwilling to cough up names of other "Communists." Needless to say, Rolfe starts singing -- but what comes out of his mouth is not the least bit tuneful.

Karen Ocamb's recent article in the Los Angeles Blade entitled Homosexuals Forgotten During 75th Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation offers a stark reminder that the "real Americans" and white supremacists supporting Trump may be just as venally clueless as some "good Germans" were during Hitler's rise to power.

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For decades, politicians who needed to score some easy points with voters have asked a simple question: "Is this the kind of world we want to leave to our children?" Guaranteed to generate applause, there was never any suggestion that the politician asking the question might be responsible for the very crisis at hand.

With Donald Trump's vicious assault on the Constitution and debauched determination to undo each and every environmental protection enacted by Barack Obama and his presidential predecessors (dating back to Richard M. Nixon, who created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), the world now has a vaingloriously vindictive and grievously grotesque face upon which to pin the blame for part of our planet's accelerating climate crisis. While it's one thing to blame the fossil fuel industry for global warming, it's quite another to look at the oleaginous, pusillanimous, and late Cretaceous face of Donald Trump and feel a desire to puke all over everything he represents.

The Aurora Theatre Company is currently presenting the West Coast premiere of The Children in a production that has been powerfully directed by Barbara Damashek. Inspired by the April 26, 1986 nuclear accident in Chernobyl and the March 11, 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the Tōhoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami, Lucy Kirkwood's provocative drama raises poignant questions about who should be allowed to survive such a disaster: the scientists who designed a faulty nuclear facility or their children's generation, who are doomed to suffer a slow and potentially agonizing death from radiation sickness.

In some ways, The Children is a prime example of the moral dilemma faced by unfortunate people face when the personal becomes acutely political and the political becomes all too inconveniently personal. In other ways, it triggers memories of 1959's On The Beach, in which most life on earth has been eradicated following the outbreak of a nuclear war. As Aurora's Artistic Director, Josh Costello, writes:

“This play haunts me. Lucy Kirkwood writes such nuanced characters and compelling relationships that it's perfect for Aurora's intimate space, especially with this remarkable cast and director. But she's also asking big questions about generational responsibility, questions that will stick with you long after you leave the theater.”

James Carpenter (Robin), Julie Eccles (Hazel), and Anne Darragh
(Rose) perform an old dance favorite in a scene from The Children
(Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Though there are only three characters in Kirkwood's play, each carries a substantial amount of emotional baggage. Their burden is magnified by the fact they were on the engineering team that helped to design and construct a nearby nuclear plant situated on the coast of England.

Julie Eccles (Hazel) and James Carpenter (Robin) in a scene from
The Children (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Hazel (Julie Eccles) and her husband, Robin (James Carpenter), were forced to leave their home following the earthquake and move to a temporary residence in a ramshackle cottage. Their diet has changed due to the high levels of radiation near the nuclear plant. Robin has been struggling to dig graves so he can bury the dead cows and other farm animals in the restricted zone. Sometimes their home has electricity; at other times it does not. Sometimes Robin is depressed, at other times Hazel tries to keep her spirits up by practicing yoga.

Anne Darragh (Rose) and Julie Eccles (Hazel) in a scene from
The Children (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

An unexpected visit from their former colleague, Rose (Anne Darragh), comes with as bizarre a request as the one made by Claire Zachanassian in Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1956 drama, The Visit, or Harry and Edna's sudden appearance in Edward Albee's 1966 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, A Delicate Balance. As the play begins, Hazel is trying to help Rose clean up the mess from a spontaneous nosebleed.

A lot has happened since the two women last spoke 30 years ago. Although Rose never had any children, Hazel and Robin had four. Hazel is still deeply invested in helping her daughter cope with day-to-day anxieties while Robin's body tends to trigger the family's Geiger counter whenever it comes in close contact with him.

James Carpenter co-stars as Robin in The Children
(Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Though Rose arrived in a taxi without any baggage, she has a clear agenda. Since the earthquake, she's recruited nearly 100 scientists from their professional pool to relieve the younger employees at the nuclear plant from their posts. That way, the older generation can work on fixing the facility while they're still living and their younger colleagues can have a chance to live longer lives. Joining Rose will require a huge personal loss and an intensely moral sacrifice from those scientists who agree to return to the power plant -- a decision that cannot be made lightly. But Rose's philosophy is refreshingly blunt: "If you're not going to grow, don't live."

Anne Darragh costars as Rose in The Children
(Photo by: Kevin Berne)

Aurora's tiny performance space (with its three-quarter around seating plan) is the perfect setting for this intense drama about guilt, responsibility, and matters of life and death. The company is truly blessed to have three of the Bay area's finest actors inhabiting the characters of Hazel, Robin, and Rose. With set design by Mikiko Uesugi, costumes by Cass Carpenter, lighting by Ray Oppenheimer, and sound design by Jeff Mockus, The Children is what I like to call "a pressure-cooker drama" (much like Frank D. Gilroy's 1964 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Subject Was Roses). Its intensity is undeniable, the quality of work onstage unforgettable, and the questions it raises deeply disturbing.

Julie Eccles co-stars as Hazel in The Children (Photo by: Kevin Berne)

If you're wondering what possible tie-in Kirkwood's riveting drama could possibly have to Rodgers and Hammerstein, listen to these famous lyrics from 1945's Carousel:


Performances of The Children continue through March 1 at the Aurora Theatre Company (click here for tickets).