New Issue: 34th Parallel

As Trace Sheridan points out in a comment on another post, there's a new issue of 34th Parallel out, and it's available for purchase at their website.

TOB Crowns a Champion

Or at least I think so. (They don't seem to be making a big deal of it, as if there is more to come.) It appears that Toni Morrion's A Mercy--which, as I discussed here, is a very fine book--won the finals ot the Tournament of Books, 11-6 againstCity of Refuge.

Wag's Revue

There's a handsome new literary magazine online called Wag's Revue. ("Wag" appears to be short for Web-based Magazine, as opposed to the "traditional" term for online magazines, which is "Zine" or "e-Zine".)

I like the layout and the page-scrolling of the magazine. The first issue also has an impressive lineup of interviews, including Wells Tower and Dave Eggers, and short fiction by Brian Evenson and others. I'm not familiar with those "others" or the poets and non-fiction contributors, but I look forward to reading their work.

What may get the magazine more attention than the interviews and fiction/poetry/non-fiction, however, is the Editors' Manifesto, which manages to insult every other online magazine in existence and their editors by suggesting that no other online magazine has high quality content or adequate editorial oversight. Since I'm not an editor of an online magazine and don't publish online as much as I publish in print, it doesn't bother me much. Manifestos, after all, are meant to be controversial. Still, I hear tongues, er, wagging.

It will be interesting to see what comes next from Wag's Revue and it's young (all students at Brown, according to article) editors.

New Issue: College Hill Review

Check out Issue No. 2 of College Hill Review.

F Minus

H/T Anne

Tournament of Books--continued

I got busy and the TOB fell of my radar screen for a while, but I see we are now in the Zombie Round, just one match away from the Championship. (The Zombie Round seems to be the place where books never die.) 2666 and A Mercy are still "alive" apparently, and the winner will face City of Refuge in the finals.

LitMag Graveyard: Lunch Hour Stories

It wasn't around all that long--four years--but Lunch Hour Stories has announced that it will cease publication. LHS was an imitator of One Story: a thin, small saddle-bound magazine that included a single story and was published relatively often. I subscribed for a while and thought that it was a decent magazine. It's always unfortunate when a magazine dies.

Here's an excerpt from the statement of the editor, Nina Bayer:

There is, and always will be, something special about holding a magazine or book in your hands and smelling the scent of freshly printed paper, but the rising costs of printing and postage have now expanded beyond the means of this small publisher. Therefore, it is with sincere regret that we cease operations of our print publication. And, not being willing (yet) to jump on the "anyone-can-publish-their-work-online bandwagon," we close our doors to publishing altogether.

ASC: The Blind Beggar of Alexandria

Wednesday night I saw what is most likely my final performance of the 2009 Actors' Renaissance Season at the American Shakespeare Center: The Blind Beggar of Alexandria. (The season runs through Sunday, so if there are shows you've missed, you still have a chance!)

I've thoroughly enjoyed this season, especially the productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Changeling. But The Blind Beggar of Alexandria is certainly memorable, in part because it is a rarity (this is the first professional production of the play anywhere in 400 years) and in part because of the masterful performance of John Harrell as the Blind Beggar. How does he do it?

Harrell plays Irus, the Blind Beggar, who isn't blind and who is actually Cleanthes, the exiled Duke and lover of Aegiale, Queen of Egypt. In pursuit of riches and sport, Cleanthes/Irus also takes on the identities of Hermes and Leon, one a Count and one a rich merchant. With the help of his brother, Pego (Christopher Seiler), Cleanthes in his various guises manages to marry and impregnate two young beauties, scam Lord Antistenes out of a small fortune, murder a suitor to the Queen's daughter (why isn't clear, although as the Duke he seems to have designs on the girl himself) . . . and so on. It's a non-stop con, and Harrell is in the middle of it all.

But besides the brilliance of Harrell, the supporting cast here is excellent, as well. I love Allison Glenzer, Alyssa Wilmoth, and Miriam Donald as the three sisters who visit Irus to have their fortunes told and then find themselves married--as Irus predicts--2 to Cleanthes and one to Pego. Gregory Jon Phelps gets to have some fun in this show, too, playing the murdered Doricles as well as the Spaniard Bragadino, bested by the "Duke" for the hand of Elimine. And four company members (Rene Thornton, Jr., Chris Johnston, Benjamin Curns, and Thomas Keegan) appear as four kings angry with King Ptolomy (also played by Curns), in a plot line that seems tacked on to the play, who then get to compete for the attentions of Cleanthes's "widows."

The play is wonderfully silly and doesn't even make much sense, but it's great entertainment anyway. I'm sorry to see this Actors' Renaissance Season come to a close, but am already looking forward to the Spring season and the return of the touring company.

The New Yorker: "Julia and Byron" by Craig Raine

Julia has cancer (oh, one of those stories). But she’s a scientist and so she agrees to an experimental treatment. When it doesn’t work, in fact makes her worse, the conventional treatment revives her. But her consultant—consistently called “Mr. Aaronovitch” and so, presumably, not a doctor—wants to try yet another experiment and she agrees. Why the hell does she agree? Given that this is very short story I don’t feel too badly about giving away what happens (yes, that was a SPOILER ALERT): she dies. But not before the story shifts to the consciousness of Byron, Julia’s husband. Byron loved Julia but, it seems, never showed her. In fact, her diaries suggest that she thought he was a jerk. Why the hell did she stay married to him, then? What’s this woman’s problem? For a long time, Byron is miserable (he has a stroke at the funeral?), until he marries a younger woman and is still a jerk. The end.

Huh? So, maybe the point is that Julia was willing to try these experimental treatments because she didn’t care whether she lived or died. She was married to someone incapable of showing his love, and so what kind of life is that? As points go, it’s not satisfying.

There’s some beautiful language here: “Folds, a cape of chlorinated water, gather at her neck as she strokes down the pool in little pulses, touches with two hands together, and turns in an eddy.” I wasn’t familiar with the author, but was not surprised to learn that he is primarily known as a poet. And that, it seems to me, is as it should be.

March 30, 2009: “Julia and Byron” by Craig Raine

Getting an early start on Poetry Month

VaBook.org--Saturday

On Saturday at the Virginia Festival of the Book I moderated one panel and attended two, in addition to various hallway chats, meetings, and receptions.

The panel I moderated ("A Group of One's Own: Writers in Community") featured representatives from four Virginia writers' organizations: WriterHouse, Blue Ridge Writers' Club (a chapter of the Virginia Writers' Club), James River Writers, and Literary Ladies Luncheon. Thanks to the efforts of Christy Strick, Jack Trammell, Virginia Pye, and Janis Jaquith, we had what I thought was an informative and useful discussion.

After that I went to a panel that wasn't as depressing as I thought it was going to be. Entitled "What About My Book? Navigating the Industry," it featured industry blogger Ron Hogan, Chuck Adams from Algonquin, agent Deborah Grosvenor, and publicist Elizabeth Shreve, and was moderated by Bella Stander from Book Promotion 101. Hogan gave the bad news, detailing the layoffs that have happened in publishing over the last six months, but the panel as a whole concluded that the industry brought some of this on itself by giving ridiculously large advances to some projects. The upshot seems to be more caution, and more realistic advances, but not total collapse. Small houses in particular, like Algonquin, aren't going to do much that is different now. Grosvenor is still selling books to publishers. And Shreve is still publicizing them, although she observed that her clients are increasingly authors instead of publishers, and that seems to be a new trend. Don't give up, was the message.

Then we had the agents' roundtable, and this one resembled others that I've been to, although again I was encouraged by what was said. Deals are still being made. (This was particularly encouraging because my agent was on the panel!)

After a meeting with my agent, I then headed down to the Authors' Reception. I was afraid I wouldn't see anyone I knew, but I ran into friends on the way and as soon as I got there saw Peter Orner, and then bumped into a number of other acquaintances until they kicked us out at 7:30.

A full day, and the end of the Festival for me. It continues on Sunday, but I'm not able to go back again. So, I'm looking forward to next year: March 17-21, 2010.

2009 National Magazine Awards

Finalists for the National Magazine Awards were announced this past week. See the full list: here.

Virginia Quarterly Review is once again a finalist in the General Excellence category for magazines with circulation below 100,000. (The American Scholar is also nominated in this category.)

In the fiction category, The New Yorker is nominated twice, which I don't quite understand. The first is for two stories: Joshua Ferris's "The Dinner Party" (a particular favorite of readers of this blog and the winner of our annual "Best New Yorker Story of the Year" award) and Roberto Bolano's "Clara"; and the second is for Aledsandr Hemon's "The Noble Truths of Suffering" (a finalist for our award) and "Them Old Cowboy Songs" by Annie Proulx. Also, Paris Review, VQR, and The American Scholar are all nominated in this category.

Winners will be announced at the end of April.

VaBook.org--Friday

I managed to get to two panels today and enjoyed both very much.

First was "Searching for Our Roots: Memoirs" featuring Randall Kenan, whose The Fire This Time is part memoir and part response to James Baldwin. (I know Randall from Bread Loaf and Sewanee and it was good to catch up with him, briefly); Ariel Sabar, whose My Father's Paradise just won the NBCC Award for Memoir; Martha Frankel, whose Hats & Eyeglasses is about gambling addiction; and Lise Funderburg, whose Pig Candy is an account of getting to know her father. All four panelists were engaging and funny, and there were some good questions from the moderator and the audience.

Then I changed venues in order to see the "Book Review Superstars" panel featuring Michael Dirda, Alan Cheuse, Louis Bayard, and Bethanne Kelly Patrick. It was a lively discussion moderated by Ron Hogan, and I truly enjoyed listening to all of them. The news is no surprise: for a variety of reasons, newspapers are cutting back the space available for book reviews, and so reviewers are looking for alternative media. Writers, likewise, are struggling to get reviewed, and they two are looking for attention in a variety of spaces.

The Short Review: March 2009

There's a new issue of The Short Review up and it is, again, filled with fine discussions of short story collections. This month there are reviews of books by Kyle Minor, Lee Rourke, Carol Manley, Michael Martone, Tamar Yellin, Laura Chester, Jody Lisberger, Laura Solomon, Frances Thimann, and an anthology edited by Theodore Q. Rorschalk.

Power of Power

It's been a strange 24 hours. Last night at about this time I was working on something--oh, yeah, trying to download student essays to grade--when there was power surge. My computer and DSL modem are on a surge protector with UPS, so that wasn't a concern (much--who knows if these things really work), but I lost the connection to the network. I fiddled with the modem for a little while, but nothing happened. So I checked the phone--no dial tone. Uh oh.

So I found a number for Verizon and called on my cellphone. I've had some problems with Verizon lately, so I wasn't optimistic, but the call had to be made. I "spoke" to a computer that instructed me to take a phone outside to the Network Interface Device to test it or, if I didn't want to do that, I could schedule a service call. I had no idea where the NID was, so I "asked"--punching 1 or 3 or some stupid number--for a service call. The computer, in her very polite voice, informed me that a technician would visit during a 13-hour window next Tuesday. Next Tuesday! Six days away! So I thought hard about the NID and realized I did know where it was. I have only one "regular" phone that doesn't require a power source, so I pulled that off the wall and headed out to the NID. Dead. Which meant it wasn't just MY problem.

I called Verizon back and pressed enough buttons that I was able to get to a real person, and that was good only in that she was able to add to my problem ticket that I had tested the NID and found no dial tone there either. (This was good because I wouldn't have to be present for the technician, who now didn't need to get inside the house.) So, no phone. Which meant no internet. Now, that actually began to appeal to me. I envisioned sitting down to work in the morning without the distraction of the internet. I would get SO MUCH done! I could always head into town with my laptop and use the wireless at the library or a coffee shop to do email, etc. I had my cellphone for emergencies and oculd check messages that came into my landline. All in all, it seemed manageable.

So I sat down with a tape for a self-guided meditation course I'm doing. It was really helpful in pushing aside some of the anxiety that the phone mess had created. I was breathing and trying to focus when my mind wandered, when suddenly the lights went out. I turned off the tape (it's on a battery) and looked outside. Dark everywhere. The computer was still on (thanks to the UPS), but I shut that down and turned off the UPS. Downstairs I lit candles and then found the phone number for the power company to report this problem. And then there wasn't much I could do. So Bhikku and I sat on the porch in the dark. I had a candle out there for a while, but it was actually nicer in the dark, so I blew it out. I saw neighbors pull out there candles or flashlights and come outside to investigate. In a few minutes trucks were driving slowly along the road with bright lights, looking for the source of the problem (I imagined). About 45 minutes later, the lights came back on. The evening was already disrupted, but at least I could reset the clocks, and plan for a semi-normal night and morning (minus the internet).

At some point in the middle of the night the power went out again. I had turned the UPS back on, so now I had to turn it off again because its beep is shrill and unpleasant when you're trying to sleep. I didn't bother to reset the alarm. So in the morning, more or less at my usual time, I got up. The lights were working and so, oddly, was the phone. And the internet. And I proceeded to get distracted once again. It couldn't have waited a few hours to come back?

VaBook.org

I only made it to one panel today at the Virginia Festival of the Book despite having several events circled on my schedule. It was a good one, entitled Extraordinary Journey's, with three novelists I hadn't heard of. Each one talked a little about his or her own story and then read briefly from the books that brought them to the Fesitval. First was Rodes Fishburne, whose book Going to See the Elephant is about a writer in San Francisco. Then there was Domnica Radulescu, who talked about her novel, Train to Trieste. Last was Susan Gregg Gilmore and her novel Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen. All three authors were quite engaging and I enjoyed the readings. (The space at Barnes & Nobel that is used for these readings was filled to over-flowing, which seemed like a good sign.)

Orange Prize Long List

The longlist for the 2009 Orange Prize has been announced. The list includes Toni Morrison, Marilynne Robinson, Allegra Goodman, and 17 other women.

The New Yorker: "Endpoint"-- Poems by John Updike

Instead of fiction, the March 16, 2009 issue of The New Yorker included several pages of chilling poems by John Updike, most dated only a few weeks before he died. They will be included in a posthumous collection of poems (Endpoint and Other Poems) which is being published next month. (The speed with which this book is being produced no doubt makes good business sense, but seems grisly to me, particularly if the excerpt in TNY is an idication of the overall subject matter.)

I don't want to infringe, but I must quote one piece:

Here in this place of arid clarity,
two thousand miles from where my souvenirs
collect a cozy dust, the piled produce
of bald ambition pulling ignorance,
I see clear through to the ultimate page,
the silence I dared break for my small time.
No piece was easy, but each fell finished,
in its shroud of print, into a book-shaped hole.

Here comes Pat Conroy again

I thought the first Pat Conroy book was pretty good. After that, it felt like he was telling the same story over and over again. Dysfunctional family, abusive father. Okay, we get it. Make something up now, please. Move on!

I don't think he's moved on. Here's an announcement of his new book that was just sold to a publisher:

NON-FICTION: MEMOIR
Pat Conroy's THE DEATH OF SANTINI, about his often abusive and complicated father's final days, and Pat's coming to terms with him (a Marine fighter pilot who inspired the novel The Great Santini, remembered by many for Robert Duvall's Oscar-nominated film portrayal of him), to Steve Rubin and Nan Talese at Doubleday, in a major deal, for seven figures, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (world).

I'm going to pass on this one.

The New Yorker: "She's the One" by Tessa Hadley

Tessa Hadley’s “She’s the One” goes directly on my list of best stories of the year, even though I was vaguely unsatisfied by the ending. I liked a great deal the drama of Ally’s situation—she’s recently graduated, her brother has just killed himself, she’s stifled by a grieving mother, and suddenly finds herself in the company of a brash Canadian writer—and the portrayal of the characters, so that I think the ending matters less to me than it usually does. Ally, dealing with all of the above, is working in a “writers’ center”—a place where week-long courses for writers are held. There she meets Hilda, who is portrayed in such negative terms that I was relieved that she isn’t American. (I imagine Hadley thinking of her initially as American but then wincing at the stereotype; she solves the problem nicely by making her Canadian.) Hilda turns out to be surprisingly useful to Ally in dealing with her grief, but the story’s climax actually turns on a meeting with Yvonne, the dead brother’s girlfriend.

I thought the writing throughout the story was superb. The descriptions were sharp, the characters—Ally and Hilda, and to a lesser extent the mother and Yvonne—are round. (Men are mostly absent here—Ally’s father is a cipher, her older brother is dead, her younger brother is largely irrelevant.) And I suppose, frankly, the setting in the writers’ center appeals to me. I love the dialogue among the faculty about the students, because I’ve imagined this happening at the conferences I’ve attended. Hilda, too, is a recognizable type, the self-absorbed writer. She gains stature when she announces to Ally that her novel is dead; the fact that she has recognized this indicates that she is now a character who might have something useful to say. And she does.

But the ending. Ally is about to reach out and “grab the gold ring,” but not in the way we normally think of. Or, she has stepped into the river and is baptized. But not in the way we normally think of. Or, she has demonstrated to a silly girl who is apparently the cause of her brother’s death how silly she is. Still not sure what to make of it.

March 23, 2009: “She’s the One” by Tessa Hadley

20 Questions #4

Do you have a mentor? I think it was much more common a generation ago for writers to latch onto more senior authors and to learn from them. Not as an apprentice exactly, but as student outside the classroom. But I don't hear about it so much these days.

So, who is your mentor? Who would you choose for your mento if you could? (Since we're fantasizing here, no need to limit yourself to living people, but let's try to avoid the fictional.) Why? And how do you feel about being a mentor yourself?

While we're on the subject, do you know of any interesting historical mentor-mentee relationships?

Virginia Festival of the Book

This is the week of the excellent Virginia Festival of the Book or, as we call it around here, VaBook. It starts Wednesday morning, but I won't get over there until sometime Thursday for some panels that look good to me, and I'll also head back on Friday. The panel I'm moderating is on Saturday ("Writers in Community"). If you're in the Charlottesville neighborhood, check out the schedule and hit a few of the events. And buy some books!

"Like Lilly Like Wilson" by Taylor Mali

NBCC Awards Announced

The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards have been announced (but not yet on the blog as of a few minutes ago). According to Publishers Weekly, the winners are:

Fiction: Roberto Bolaño, 2666. FSG

General Nonfiction: Dexter Filkins, The Forever War. Knopf

Biography: Patrick French, The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul. Knopf

Autobiography: Ariel Sabar, My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq. Algonquin

Criticism: Seth Lerer, Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter. University of Chicago Press

Poetry: August Kleinzahler, Sleeping It Off in Rapid City. FSG, and Juan Felipe Herrera, Half the World in Light: New and Selected Poems. University of Arizona Press

Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing: Ron Charles

Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award: Pen American Center

T.O.B. Continues . . .

The Tournament of Books continues:

Peter Matthiessen's Shadow Country edges E. Lockhart's Disreputable History. No surprise there. In something of an upset, though, Tom Piazza's City of Refuge edged Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth. Three more matches to go in the first round.

For additional fun, check out the comments of Kevin Guilfoile and John Warner (TOB Commissioners), and leave your own.

Love Your Indie Contest

Not only is it Small Press Month, it's also Love Your Indie Month, and to celebrate, Joe Hill is running the Love Your Indie Contest: buy a book at an Indie, copy the receipt and send it to him, and you're entered to win. Visit the blog for details, and the contest is backdated to March 1. Here's a thought: buy a small press book at an independent bookstore!

"The Coolest Writer in America"

Or so says Benjamin Alsup in the new issue of Esquire about Colson Whitehead. The book he's writing about is Sag Harbor, Whitehead's new book, an excerpt from which The New Yorker tried to pass off as a short story last year. (My comments about that excerpt are here; I thought it was excellent and stood alone nicely, unlike other novel excerpts TNY runs.) The reason I'm even bringing this up is that I love Alsup's opening paragraph:

"Everybody digs Colson Whitehead. Since we're talking literary fiction here, let it be understood that when I say everybody, I mean hardly anyone. I mean aging editors at The New Yorker and reviewers at The New York Times."

Sad, but true.

Tournament of Books--continued

The Tournament of Books continues. Today is Round 3: The White Tiger vs. Harry, Revised.

The winner: Harry, Revised.

In Round 2, Netherland was defeated by a book I've never heard of: A Partisan's Daughter. Could this be the tournament's Cinderella?

Styron and Aquinnah

Bark is a terrific magazine for dog lovers. In the current issue there is a lovely essay by the late William Styron (from Havanas in Camelot) about walking with his dog. And I mention it not because of the dog, although that part's great, but because of the walk. "From the professional point of view," he says, "there is nothing better than walking at a brisk pace to force oneself into a contemplative mood." That is, he uses the walking to take his mind off all the other things that are going on in his life so that he can concentrate on the writing.

"My mind is cluttered by a series of the most dismally mundane preoccupations: my bank balance, a dental appointment, the electrician's failure to come and repair a critical outlet. Invariably the first five or ten minutes [of the walk' are filled with sour musings—a splendid time to recollect old slights and disappointments and grudges, all flitting in and out of my consciousness like evil little goblins. . . Yet almost without fail there comes a transitional moment—somewhat blurred, like that drowsy junction between wakefulness and sleep—when I begin to think of my work, when the tiny worries and injustices that have besieged me start to evaporate, replaced by a delicious, isolated contemplation of whatever is in the offing, later that day, at the table at which I write. Ideas, conceits, characters, even whole sentences and parts of paragraphs come pouring in on me in a happy flood until I am in a state close to hypnosis, quite oblivious of the woods or the fields or the beach where I am trudging . . ."

I've found this to be true, especially at residencies where the batteries tend to run down and need to be recharged, a walk is just the thing. But also just to clear the mind:

"This, you see, is the delight and the value of walking for a writer. The writer lounging—trying to think, to sort out his thoughts—cannot really think, being the prey of endless distractions. He gets up to fix himself a sandwich, tinkers with the phonograph, succumbs weak-mindedly to the pages of a magazine, drifts off into an erotic reverie. But a walk, besides preventing such intrusions, unlocks the subconscious in such a way as to allow the writer to feel his mind spilling over with ideas. He is able to carry on the essential dialogue with himself in an atmosphere as intimate as a confessional, though his body hurries onward at three miles an hour. Without a daily walk and the transactions it stimulates in my head, I would face that first page of cold blank paper with pitiful anxiety."

Exactly. I recommend the entire essay if you can find a copy of the magazine.

Tournament of Books

The Tournament of Books is now live. First round: 2666 vs. Steer Toward Rock.

IndieBound

The New Yorker: "Wiggle Room" by David Foster Wallace

In addition to this story, which is an excerpt from an unfinished novel, the new issue of The New Yorker includes an article (The Unfinished) by D.T. Max about Wallace, who committed suicide last year. The story is about Lane Dean, a wiggler for the IRS. He’s not very good at his job, or at least he’s not as fast as his co-workers. And it is dull in every way. But he puts up with it because he has a wife and a young son. Still, though, thoughts of suicide creep in and he imagines various means of killing himself. He seems to fall asleep, at which time he is visited by a demon of some kind who discourses on etymology, specifically the etymology of the word ‘bore’ as in to bore, to be bored, boredom.

As the accompanying article makes obvious, this is excerpted from “The Pale King,” the long book (is there any other kind for Wallace) he was working on when he died. I haven’t read much Wallace—I find that I often lack the attention to stay with his prose long enough to get anything out of it—but I liked this piece. It conveyed clearly what was going on in Dean’s mind, and etymological demon was a brilliant scene.

March 9, 2009: “Wiggle Room” by David Foster Wallace

Being Miserable

I recently heard about a new book, 11,002 Things to be Miserable About by Nick Romeo. You can read an excerpt on Romeo's blog: Things to be Miserable About. And you can order the book from your local independent bookstore.

2009 Million Writers Award

For whatever it's worth, it is time once again for storySouth's Million Writers Award. Check out the rules and nominate a story!

American Shakespeare Center: The Changeling

The Changeling: Must See ASC

The Changeling is NOT by William Shakespeare, it's by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley and I had no idea what to expect. I saw Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy at the Blackfriars Playhouse last month, but it was the first Middleton I’d seen, so I didn’t know how typical it was. (The ASC production is great, but the play itself didn’t wow me, possibly because of the sheer number of bodies that litter the stage at the end.) But now my view of Middleton is colored by The Changeling, which, it seems to me, is a great play. ASC’s production of the play is perfection, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Although the play is great because of its stirring plot and bold themes, it’s gripping in part because of the parallel stories being told. The main story takes place in the castle where Alsemero is in love with Beatrice, who is betrothed to another man. Desperate Beatrice employs the hated DeFlores to kill her fiancé so that she can be with Alsemero, but things don’t work out as she planned, quite. At the same time, there is a comic subplot in the madhouse (home to fools and madmen). The subplot intersects the main story at the end, but there is also an interesting reflection going on here, one story on the other, and only the comedy in the insane ward—the characters are dressed like clowns, their behavior is exaggerated and silly, etc.—suggests which is real and which is the image.

So, there’s a lot to think about in the play itself, but let’s not forget the fantastic performances of the entire American Shakespeare Center resident company. They’re always very good, often outstanding, and in this show they are superb. Alsemero and Beatrice are played by René Thornton Jr. and Sarah Fallon, and both are wonderful. Fallon, especially, shines as Beatrice swings wildly between her love for Alsemero and her hatred for DeFlores, and then spirals downward as the horror of what she’s done takes hold. Benjamin Curns is wicked as DeFlores, the servant to the governor who lets his passion for Beatrice guide him, unleashing what appears to be natural bent toward evil. The role is a subtle one, and Curns is terrific. The scene in which DeFlores makes it clear to Beatrice that it isn’t her money he wants is incredibly chilling. Miriam Donald is Diaphanta, the saucy servant to Beatrice. Donald has an energy on stage that is always fun to watch, and this is a fine part for her. John Harrell is Vermandero, the governor. It’s not a part that showcases Harrell’s great comedic talents, but there are some very funny moments, such as near the end when Vermandero is passing judgment on the accused murderers of Alonzo while Alsemero, who has discovered the truth, can’t get his attention. Gregory Jon Phelps and Christopher Seiler play Alonzo, Beatrice’s fiancé, and his brother, and both are quite good, but they both really shine in the parallel madhouse plot where they are Antonio, the false fool, and Lollio, the doctor’s assistant. Alibius, the doctor, is Aaron Hochhalter, who makes an excellent mad scientist. In this part of the play, Antonio is pretending to be a fool to get to Isabella, the doctor’s wife, who is played by Alyssa Wilmoth as a pouty schoolgirl who is, naturally, charmed by the attention she receives from Antonio and also from Franciscus, played by Thomas Keegan, who is pretending to be mad. Both Phelps and Keegan are very funny in these roles, as is Seiler, who seems a genuine mad fool to these two counterfeits.

It is, as I said, a superb show. But wait, there’s more.

I always make sure to get to the theater at least fifteen minutes before the show starts so that I can catch the pre-show. The pre-show is different for each of the plays and is usually a mix of music and clever ways to deliver the basic information: the company uses Shakespeare’s original staging practices, no photography allowed, etc. The pre-show for The Changeling is one of the funniest I’ve seen. It began with some fine musical performances by the cast and then Phelps, Curns, and Keegan came on stage. They wore ballcaps and bling and, sure enough, they launched into a hip-hop version of the pre-show speech. Very funny stuff. And then it got even funnier when John Harrell brought the rap to a stop.

This is a show to remember. And there is still time to see it and its companions before the Actors Renaissance Season ends on March 29: Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Revenger’s Tragedy, Henry VI Part I, and the show that will open next week, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria. And you should.

Andrew's Book Club: March Selections

Andrew's Book Club has announced it's March selections. For those just tuning in, "Andrew" is Andrew Scott, and beginning in January this month he has been picking short story collections to read and discuss. His initial For the first two months he picked one small press book and one big press book, which seemed like a reasonable thing to do. Now he's going with those plus one university press, and this month I'm ahead of him. I already have Jim Tomlinson's Nothing Like an Ocean, published by the University of Kentucky Press. The other picks for this month are Samuel Ligon's Drift and Swerve, from Autumn House, and Mary Gaitskill's Don't Cry. (Gaitskill is also featured this month on the cover of Poets & Writers; her publicist must be doing something right.