Show Biz
for release 08-07-06
Washington DC
The Poet's Eye has been on vacation for the past two weeks so that we could work on the Cabaradio Show which was presented as part of the Inaugural Capitol Fringe Festival in Washington DC. (see pictures of Cabaradio here)
I was glad not to be burdened with politics and culture and current events for this period, and to get back to my roots in show business. The most thrilling and high-quality times of my life have been when joining with other performers to produce a show. There's no people like show people, they smile when they are low.
The theater, with all its fantasy and facade is an indicator of real life. There are fights and ego struggles and misunderstandings, just like in the world at large. But it's a beautiful thing when people put away their petty self interests to create something larger than themselves--a show.
The Poet's Eye looks at the nonsense going on in the Middle East and sees a solution. Why don't we do a show? We could get Mel Brooks to write it. No, wait, he's a Jew. How about Mel Gibson? No, no let's write it with wiki. Anybody can edit it, Jew or Arab or conservative or liberal fundamentalist whatever.
It's a show, and the show must go on.
I'm sorry to get all paisley and granola on you here, but we all have to live together on this planet. It's hard to hear the harmony when the grenades are falling.
The percussion section is dominating right now. Roadside bombs in Baghdad and missiles in Beirut and Katyusha rockets reaching for Tel Aviv. What the world needs now is love, sweet love. We need more string section and the coloratura of the bassoon and clarinets.
Why am I amazed that in the name of the world's great religions, where the ideals of love and forgiveness and care for our fellow men are expressed, we see merciless killings and anger and revenge? It's too much for the sensitive mind of an artist to bear.
So, instead of all this chaos and violence and hardship and humiliation, why don't we do a show? To make a show happen, everyone has to pull together.
Any theatrician knows that drama is based on conflict. Consider Romeo and Juliet. Or West Side Story. These are both the same story of course. The Montagues against the Capulets or the Sharks against the Jets. Or the Muslims against the Christians and Jews. I smell a love story here, a musical.
Here's the thing about the theater: the Capulets and the Montagues might sword fight each other onstage but they put their makeup on in the same dressing room. If a show is to succeed, then the players and the crew and the directors and the ticket takers all need to pull in the same direction. That's the wonderful thing about show business. The show comes first. It's a symbol of community. If our world is to succeed, then we have to put aside our egos and our vanity and our petty differences and our lust for power and wealth and make a good show.
I'm thinking Condi Rice as Maria. Or is it Juliet? Condi of Troy?
When you're a Jet,
You're a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette
To your last dyin' day.
Then you are set
With a capital J,
Which you'll never forget
Till they cart you away.
When you're a Jet,
You stay a Jet!
----Stephen Sondheim
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