so much to write about,,,,

where to begin...missed the BAN meeting last night because I was tired after a day of subbing and a session. Have not heard any feedback yet---hopefully will get a report soon. It is hard for me now to join any groups, will have to just learn about an action or protest and jump in. Still I want to remain involved.
 Read one page in Alberto Gonzalez's book on the Mayor. The saddest part of that is that one of the Mayor's advisors, one who did not believe that the real estate industry should have so much power, died before the election. He might have influenced the Mayor to hire a much more liberal Director of City Planning then the current one. Sad. Yes, the Mayor has done some constructive things, but his vision of re-development---well you know. Nice to hear that the challenger to City Council person Levin has some strong things to say about displacement and the aggressiveness of the development class. Will she win? Should I flyer for her?  Possibly, I certainly would be heartened by some change.
  Reports from the weekend. Saturday, off to Bushwick for Heather Christian'ss piece at the Starr. A confessional---starts off kind of coy and anecdotal, then descends into a kind of heaven-hell place that is really all consuming. As the liturgy for her dead grandparents continues, the audience is put into 19 minutes of darkness. An amazing choir and some musicians play while this is going on. The music is complicated, but they do it anyway. At first, I hated the darkness---almost panicked, but as it continued and the music became more and more intense, I understood why it had to be. Effect was striking---a theater event defined completely in and of itself.I felt like I was being pulled into a new reality---and really was happy, as the lights slowly reappeared. It was striking.
 After the play, though that I would go to Starr bar, but the latter was packed with Halloween revelers (many dressed as Socialists, if you can imagine that) ---and most of Bushwick seemed filled with costumed people. Is this necessary? Is this the height of superficiality?  So many millennials are buying into this, why? I suppose I will have to face this again this evening---I should not go far from the upper west side. Anyway, had my pizza slice and simply headed home---looking forward to Sunday.
     Sunday afternoon, had a very easy time getting a free ticket for Illyria, playwright Richard Nelson's take on the Joe Papp---Robert Moses conflict that might have destroyed the Public (then the New York Shakespeare Festival) but actually was the turning point in the Festival gaining stamina and publicity. It is an interesting play-filled with 50's theater minutia that I knew completely, but that I wonder, how many others in the audience were aware of.  A nice cast does good ensemble work, yet as I separated myself from it, I felt more and more annoyed with it. Why does every cast member---as good as they are--look alike, as if they had all arrived from the same acting school. The actor George C Scott, who got his first break from the Festival, and performed with them later, is spoken of a great deal, but never appears. Why? Is his galvanic and gut-brute presence too "hot" for the playwright to handle. His absence and Nelson's unwillingness to put him on stage, almost defines what is wrong with the play. Each character seems to have one trait that never changes: Papp: feistiness; Debuskey: Friendship; Vaughan: ambition---the others see their parts whittled down, and two of the four women remain nothing but cyphers. Still it has the trappings of a serious play. Maybe I am angry because as a "theater expert" of that time, I was not called in to tell my recollections, which I think might have interested the cast members. But how could I, since I don't know Nelson or any one involved in the production. At any rate, the more I considered it, the more angered I was by its existence. The Public seems to have appointed Nelson its historical genius---I think this history, filtered through his sensibility, fails very badly.
   It was raining, when I left the Public; I did not feel like going to Brooklyn and taking the chance that the subways might be shut down or the tunnels connecting the two boroughs would blink out (they wern't) Instead had a nice time at Formerly Crows, and a good talk with Sloane, an old South fourth denizen, who now cooks for the bar. After that, I was tired and returned home.
   Not sure about this evening---possibly the Bernstein concert at the Philharmonic, but will wait for the early evening to decide. Will report soon.