The Write Thing

In 1968, the world of entertainment became mesmerized with a skinny young girl with a prominent nose who sang her way through the bittersweet life of theater and film actress Fanny Brice in the box office hit (both in theater and film) Funny Girl.

My admiration for Ms. Streisand goes back in time numerous years, to those darker moments of my youth when English was becoming a language of fate and a permanent shelter, without my knowing it. In the movie, there is a climactic scene where she rushes to catch a tugboat at the New York harbor, shortly after finding love in the arms of bon vivant Nicky Arnstein (played by Omar Sharif). Much as I would like to linger in my praise of Barbra as a consummate actress and singer, injecting pathos and passion in a character that to some extent ended up reflecting her quite a lot at some stages in her life, I will refrain from doing so.

The tugboat scene unfolds with the backdrop of a hurried Miss Brice trying to convince her entourage that her decision to live life beyond her success as a comedienne with the Ziegfeld Follies is final. She does this with a song, while everybody begs her to reconsider. However, she is adamant and will follow Nick to write the first act of a love whose epilogue will be a dark naked stage where La Streisand will render perhaps the best version of My Man ever recorded. But right now, if you can hold your breath enough to accompany the singer through the end of a belted note that grows above a mid-size orchestra, there is still a world to hope for.

The tugboat slides on a foamy sea, leaving a trail leading back to the harbor of departure. From a distance, it seems as if she could choose to go back and put such a preposterous idea of love well behind her. Curiously, the novelty here is that in the wildest act of love in the movie, the heroine does not sing of love, but of possibility….and perhaps that is what love is all about.

I’m gonna live and live NOW!
Get what I want, I know how!
One roll for the whole shebang!
One throw that bell will go clang,
Eye on the target and wham,
One shot, one gun shot and bam!
Hey, Mr. Arnstein, here I am …

I’ll march my band out, I will beat my drum,
And if I’m fanned out, your turn at bat, sir,
At least I didn’t fake it, hat, sir,
I guess I didn’t make it
Get ready for me love, ’cause I’m a “comer”
I simply gotta march, my heart’s a drummer
Nobody, no, nobody, is gonna rain on my parade!

I’ve been away for the past few weeks, visiting exotic places like Costa Rica (well, being a Latin American myself, the adjective sounds stilted at best) and Houston (now, that’s exotic for a Latin girl!). I’ll post more on that later. Today I wanted to revisit the blog and inaugurate a new category I had neglected for quite some time: Theatre (yes, British spelling it is). I have just come back from a play called Ora X: L’Inferno del Dante, which I understand is written, directed and played by Matteo Belli, an Italian actor from Bologna (I may not have gotten that one right, it’s the information I was given). The Internet has been generous enough to include an Italian review of this work, and the link on the name mentioned above will guide you to it, if you are interested. This play was offered at the Teatro Cervantes in Buenos Aires, and the last show was yesterday night, March 16th 2008 (you probably missed it here…). I had not been to the theatre in a long time, but today it simply had to be. It was the effect of an interesting and enthusiastic review of this man’s work at one of the top local newspapers, La Nacion that prompted me to take my car and simply drive to the theatre for the ticket. The show was at 21.30, and I loved it. I’m not very familiar with Dante’s Divine Comedy, so this acted like an introduction and a return to what I once heard or even dared discuss with some literary experts, not that I am one. After all, this hypertextuality business really works, because once you’ve read someone, you’ve really read many other people, backwards and forwards. The power of networking was in the literary world way before the business world discovered its application! In short, I loved the play, this is a tremendous actor who deploys his mastery of comedy, drama, plasticity, voice and timing in a 120-minute show. I salute yet another example of the few accidents that can take place in Buenos Aires — seeing quality shows that are not made to reach the average audience. Yes, some people left the room before the show ended, others complained about the length, and very few people bought the DVD when they were leaving. But perhaps that sadly illustrates the fact that Argentina has decided to lower the bar of expectations and challenges, and that people just want to be spoon-fed whatever could put them to sleep comfortably and easily. And I don’t think Belli is to blame for that; only the people and what they let happen are.