In Off-Broadway’s ‘Lonely Planet,’ Coping with AIDS Trauma on a Human Scale: REVIEW

When an empty chair appears in the middle of Jody’s map shop, he’s a bit stumped. Carl, the eccentric gadabout to Jody’s cerebral recluse in this platonic odd couple, says there’s more where that came from. He’s not kidding: By midway through Steven Dietz’s 1993 two-hander Lonely Planet, which opened in a Keen Company revival off-Broadway on October 19, the stage of the Clurman Theatre looks like a game of chair Tetris.

It’s a funny sort of sight gag until we realize the devastating truth: Each one belonged to someone they knew who’s been claimed by a plague they hardly need to name.  

In the tradition of late 20th-century AIDS plays, Lonely Planet is no sweeping epic, like Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, returning to Broadway this spring, nor does it assume the venomous urgency of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, last revived on Broadway in 2011. Dietz’s play unfolds on a far more modest scale, offering an intimate look at how men grappled with the everydayness of suddenly living at death’s door and the fear that they might be next.

The entry to Jody’s quaint little shop (designed by Anshuman Bhatia) might as well be the gates of hell; his refusal to set foot outside is so complete he’s been crashing in the back room. As lovingly embodied by Arnie Burton, Jody is hardly a portrait of paranoia; he’s actually pretty even-keeled until provoked by Carl’s stunt into facing the fears he’s been so content to hide from.

Though Carl is out on the front lines sorting dead men’s belongings, his coping strategy involves a certain level of delusion as well. Exuberantly played by Matt McGrath, Carl waltzes in with fanciful stories of his workday in a carousel of careers — one day he’s an art restorer, the next an automotive glass repairman or a university professor, and so on.

The two men are clearly best friends, but they don’t really know much about each other’s lives, a paradox they turn to ponder as the crumbling world outside draws them closer together. Burton, last seen off-Broadway juggling impressive double roles in The Government Inspector, maneuvers the breakdown of Jody’s denial with a heartbreaking emotional clarity. His face-off with debilitating anxiety will undoubtedly feel familiar to many men, regardless of generation. Recently seen as a droll drag mother in The Legend of Georgia McBride, McGrath brings a grounded flamboyance to Carl, by turns the life of the party (such as it is) and the bearer of blunt truths.

As directed by Keen Company artistic director Jonathan Silverstein, Dietz’s play remains quietly captivating in its simplicity, and the easy intimacy between Burton and McGrath is remarkably moving. Between its heavy influence by Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist comedy The Chairs (1952) and its setting in a map shop (where maps are fixtures of what’s known), the play’s conceit can feel a bit overdetermined.

But its portraits of individual response to daily collective trauma could hardly be more relevant to 2017, nearly 25 years after the play’s premiere. And as the theatre community was reminded by the death of composer Michael Friedman this fall, the reality of AIDS is hardly a distant memory, even for the relatively affluent. Each chair piled onto the stage has its own distinct personality; the overwhelming emptiness of them all evokes the ghosts of so many stories left untold.

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‘A Clockwork Orange’ Shows Plenty of Skin, Skimps on Danger Off-Broadway: REVIEW
No Tea, No Shade — Off-Broadway’s ‘Charm’ Wants You to Behave: REVIEW
5 Actions to Take Now Inspired by Michael Moore’s ‘The Terms of My Surrender’ on Broadway
Bette Midler Is Back on Broadway in ‘Hello, Dolly!’ and You Probably Can’t Handle It: REVIEW

Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar
(photos: carol rosegg)

The post In Off-Broadway’s ‘Lonely Planet,’ Coping with AIDS Trauma on a Human Scale: REVIEW appeared first on Towleroad.

In Off-Broadway’s ‘Lonely Planet,’ Coping with AIDS Trauma on a Human Scale: REVIEW

Legends And Losers – Boxing, Belief And Me
Standing in front of Joe Louis’s gravestone with my dad, we both took a moment. He, because a kid born in to a poor Geordie mining community had come so far and was now stood before an idol’s grave in Arlington Cemetery, Washington D.C and me, because I love and respect my dad and know boxing and this moment, meant so much to him.

When I was a child, ITV showed fights on a Saturday night; Mike Tyson, seemed fearless in the face of all challengers, like a super-charged Scrappy Doo, using his right fist to send Michael Spinks crashing to the canvas – one of many mind-blowing knock outs; a little before my time but still in my consciousness were fights between Hearns, Hagler, Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard and I watched ‘Rocky 2’ on a loop.

But it is brutal, bloody and sometimes almost bestial. I hate seeing a scrap in the street, I don’t watch horror films and yet I am drawn to boxing.

It fascinates me that two people can step in a ring and inflict pain upon each other when they may not know each other and certainly haven’t done anything to warrant such violence and then after pummelling each other, can shake hands, hug and walk away.

It is one of the oldest sports and one of the most straightforward, having little of the complexity of rules that govern cricket, football or golf. But, it is above all about fairness and that is a significant appeal of it to me. It may not have an equivalent of the offside rule, but it does have a weigh in and at that, you make weight or you don’t fight. It was from boxing that the Louis-Schmeling paradox was born. Referencing two great fighters of the 1930’s and their two bouts. Joe Louis knocked out Germany’s Max Schmeling in 1938 and with it inspired a nation and served as a metaphorical blow to Hitler and his hate-filled march across Europe. The paradox says that whilst business aspires to monopolies for profit, sport needs fair competition, both sides having a chance, both having a hope, to then generate income and arouse public interest. Whilst Muhammad Ali would undoubtedly be remembered regardless of the three fights with Joe Frazier culminating in the ‘Thrilla in Manilla’, they irrefutably enhanced his story. Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano fought three times; Jake LaMotta and Sugar Ray Robinson fought six times; Jack Britton and Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis fought twenty times and would Anthony Joshua have been taken to the national heart to quite the same extent had he knocked out Klitschko easily in the first round and had there been no speculation of a rematch? I suspect not.

It is sport at its most elemental, raw, basic, pure. In Formula One you can buy a better engine, in a team sport if you’re having a bad day you have team mates who can take up the slack. In boxing, if you’re having a bad day you can end your day in hospital or worse.

None of this is to suggest that boxing is simple or simplistic. It is incredibly tactical and perhaps more akin to chess than many other physical sports. My dad taught me to play that, so there is pause for another moment. A boxer must read an opponent, study and be prepared to alter a planned approach. This in some respects will be the biggest test for Anthony Joshua this Saturday in Cardiff. Having prepped and planned for Pulev, with 12 days to go, off pops Pulev and in struts Carlos Takam. It’s not that I doubt for a second Joshua’s ability, I’ll be there and I believe I’ll see him win, but it must’ve caused a few ‘back to the drawing board’ moments.

Boxing training is gruelling; strength and cardio; running, skipping, weights and if Mickey is to be believed, chicken chasing, are all the bread and butter of a boxers day to day.

But above all, it is the mind that most fascinates me about boxing. You are alone and when that bell rings I can only imagine if you let the thought creep in to your mind, it must feel incredibly lonely. Not as lonely as the feel of the canvas against your body when facing defeat. You have fought and you are down, there is no one and nothing to help or to blame, you are exposed and it is this point where the myth, the drama, the emotion, the fighter and above all, the warrior in you is writ large and becomes a legend or loser. You don’t train to be battered and lie on the canvas and figure out what to do. Returning to Joshua v Klitschko, arguably Joshua’s determination to get back up, carry on and achieve victory was his Rocky V Apollo Creed moment. He passed from boxer to national hero and why, when I am stood in the Principality Stadium on Saturday night, I think I’ll see him beat Takam and then dominate his division for years to come. Because what boxing is about above all, is our character, our flaws and our failings, irrespective of legend, myth and star status, boxing at its most raw and brutal, with nowhere to hide, shows the true human being inside, as Maya Angelou said, ‘You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.’

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/alison-powell/legends-and-losers-boxing_b_18364942.html

The Big Election of 2017: We Need to Stand With Trans Candidate Danica Roem

The LGBT community can turn around this horrible year by helping elect the first openly trans person to a state legislature.

www.advocate.com/commentary/2017/10/25/big-election-2017-we-need-stand-trans-candidate-danica-roem

Jimmy Kimmel Wants You to Guess if These ‘Hot’ Men are Shirtless: WATCH

Anybody with a social media account knows from all the whining coming from the west coast, it’s HOT in L.A..

RELATED: The Shirtless Violinist Finds His Upside Down in a Brilliant Take on the ‘Stranger Things’ Theme — WATCH

Jimmy Kimmel took advantage of that for his man on the street segment, and made his audience try to guess whether various people on Hollywood Boulevard were wearing a shirt in the sweltering weather, which also, of course, treated everyone to an assortment of tattoos, nipple rings, and shirtless men.

Can you make the right guesses?

The post Jimmy Kimmel Wants You to Guess if These ‘Hot’ Men are Shirtless: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

Jimmy Kimmel Wants You to Guess if These ‘Hot’ Men are Shirtless: WATCH

5 Times Brexiteers Were Guilty Of ’21st Century McCarthyism’

Hard Brexiteers were today accused of a pattern of “21st Century McCarthyism” by the pro-single market campaign Open Britain. 

Government whip Chris Heaton-Harris MP faced a barrage of criticism this week for his letter to vice chancellors requesting a list of academics teaching European studies and information about their syllabus relating to Brexit.

But Open Britain claims the “sinister” behaviour is not an isolated incident. Senior Leave campaigners, such as Andrea Leadsom and Jacob-Rees Mogg, have a recent track record of attacking business and the media for a “lack of patriotism”, or being funded by Brussels. 

James McGrory, Executive Director of Open Britain, said: “A letter from a Government Whip to universities asking for lists of academics teaching about Brexit is a sinister development but it follows on from a pattern of behaviour from the Brextremists.

“We are lucky in Britain to live in an open and free society in which academics, journalists and others should be free to teach and speak as they please without being lambasted by Leave campaigners launching a 21^st Century McCarthyism.

“There is a clear pattern of politicians in favour of a hard and destructive Brexit attempting to shut down reasoned debate. It is a reflection of the utter bankruptcy of their ideology and their lack of confidence in how Brexit is unfolding.”

Andrea Leadsom 

 be more “patriotic” and “helpful” in their coverage of Brexit negotiations.

Liam Fox 

brand him a “tinpot dictator”.

Nigel Farage 

the BBC of bias over Brexit in March. 

Jacob Rees-Mogg

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brexit-mccarthyism_uk_59f064cce4b0b7e632660c90

90 Photos of 9 Years of Stardust Memories

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2017/10/25/90-photos-9-years-stardust-memories

Twitter Pledges To Be ‘Dramatically’ More Transparent With Political Advertising

Twitter has announced it will be “dramatically” more transparent about the political adverts you see on your feed, amid fears Russia sought to influence the 2016 election with adverts on social media.

From now on, any advert promoting a specific candidate or party will be clearly labelled as electioneering and state who bought them.

It comes after Twitter suspended accounts it suspected of having been bought by Russian operatives.

The site will also build a “Transparency Center” that would:

• Show all ads that are currently running or that have run on Twitter, including Promoted-Only ads

• Disclose total campaign ad spend by advertiser

• Disclose the identity of the organisation funding the campaign

• Reveal the targeting demographics, such as age, gender and geography

• Show historical data about all electioneering ad spending by advertiser

For now adverts that do not name a specific candidate will not be affected but Twitter said it would work on this.

But it warned there was no “clear industry definition” for political adverts that only addressed issues.

“We are committed to stricter policies and transparency around issue-based ads,” Twitter’s Bruce Falck wrote in a blog.

“There is currently no clear industry definition for issue-based ads but we will work with our peer companies, other industry leaders, policymakers, and ad partners to clearly define them quickly and integrate them into the new approach.”

Political ads will also face:

• Stricter requirements on who can serve these ads and limits on targeting options

• A requirement to identify as the work of an “electioneering advertisers”

• Introduce stronger penalties for advertisers who violate policies

Falck’s blog specifically mentions the Honest Ads Act, which congressional representatives introduced to “help prevent foreign interference in future elections” and that “Russia attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election by buying and placing political ads on platforms such as Facebook”.

Senator John McCain said: “In the wake of Russia’s attack on the 2016 election, it is more important than ever to strengthen our defenses against foreign interference in our elections.

“Unfortunately, US laws requiring transparency in political campaigns have not kept pace with rapid advances in technology, allowing our adversaries to take advantage of these loopholes to deceive millions of American voters with impunity.”

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/twitter-political-ads_uk_59f02f34e4b0bf1f8836ba34