Meals From The Marketplace

            As Music Circus seasons go, the one that ended several weeks ago was very good, if not quite great.  It featured four terrific productions, one that was a star showcase, one that was the annual throwaway offering and only one that was a truly weak effort.  Here’s our critical summary of the seven shows, starting with two that were among the best of the bunch.

            After starting the season with an absolute home run with “Spamalot,” the possibility of a letdown was seemingly looming with the less well-known “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”  As it turned out, these were back-to-back homers.

            The “Spamalot” production, directed by Glenn Casale, was just a hoot.  It featured all the ridiculously bawdy humor from the original film, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (former Python-mate Eric Idle wrote the book and lyrics and co-wrote the music) to which has been added what could almost pass as a message (“Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”). 

            The “Spamalot” cast was first-rate, led by Gary Beach as King Arthur and Lesli Margherita as the “Lady of the Lake.”  And, as is so often an added bonus in the best Music Circus productions, it included an outstanding ensemble of talented performers who sang, danced and acted the many zany roles the show provides.

            “Joseph” was no less rewarding.  Originally a 20-minute choral work penned by the later-to-be-famous duo of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, this show had become a full-blown musical over the years, complete with a full-blown story (albeit largely taken from an existing source: the Genesis tale in the Bible). 

            The Music Circus production, directed and choreographed by Richard Stafford took the bold step of including a 47-member children’s choir.  And those children were far more than cute kids.  They were very much a part of the show, all in a positive way.  The production also benefitted from some great dancing (including a sudden tango in the middle of the Old Testament) and eye-opening costumes (credited to Marcy Froehlich) that had the females in the ensemble dressed as college cheerleaders at one point.

            The zaniness of both shows was regrettably lost in “Oklahoma!”  The season’s third production was underwhelming in almost every respect, starting with a lackluster cast that accentuated the thin and sometimes bizarre story.  Music Circus regular Marcia Milgrom Dodge slipped badly on this one, with only a strong ensemble and nice supporting performances by Amir Talai and Heather Jane Rolff keeping the Rodgers and Hammerstein chestnut from being DOA.

            The season perked up considerably with “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” another hoot of a comedy, dressed up with singing and dancing that was brought to full fruition by director Richard Stafford (giving him two great shows to his credit).  Another terrific ensemble, this one numbering 14 singers and dancers, was joined by an excellent 13-piece orchestra and enlivened by Leon Wibbers costumes and Michael Schweikardt’s set designs.

            But “Rotten” was foremost a vehicle for its lead performers, who included Burke Moses in the Michael Caine role, Timothy Gulan in the Steve Martin one, and Jessica Rush as the seemingly innocent mark who provided the show’s hilarious denouement.  Also excellent were John Scherer and Cynthia Ferrer as surprising (and surprised) lovers and Amy Bodnar as an early conquest for the gents.

            Picture a middle-aged Barbra Streisand in the role of the young Fanny Brice, and you have the essence of the Music Circus production of “Funny Girl.”  The supremely talented Vicki Lewis took on that task, and she succeeded in channeling Ms. Streisand as well as a 50-year old possibly could.  The result was a one-woman show that director Glenn Casale played for all it was worth, even giving Ms. Lewis a solo encore (on “Oh My Man, I Love Him So”). 

            For those enamored of the show’s music (and it’s hard not to be) and/or longing to relive the Streisand star turn, this production worked as well as it could in the absence of the diva herself.

            The season’s annual “throwaway” production (again raising questions of why it is necessary to depart from the model every year) was “The Marvelous Wonderettes,” a four-woman show that was loaded with mostly forgotten songs from the 1950s and ‘60s that somehow all managed to have the same musical feel when all was sung and done.

            The show is the creation of Roger Bean, who directed this production.  It is, apparently, his main claim to fame, and, while it was a crowd pleaser, it certainly didn’t leave us longing for the good ole days.

            But all’s well that ends well, and the season most definitely ended exceedingly well with the fully enjoyable and completely satisfying production of “Forty Second Street.”  Directed by Charley Repole, the show was loaded with great dancing (mostly of the tap variety), led by Melissa Lone as the gal from nowhere seeking a career on the big stage. 

            Mr. Repole got strong support from his entire cast and from the inventive costumes by Leon Wiebers and the choreography by Michael Lichtefeld (from Gower Champion’s original conceptions).  And Craig Barna led a crack 12-piece orchestra that had to be perfect to synchronize with all that tapping.

            So, four big hits, one one-woman show, a forgettable throwaway, and a single notably weak effort.  All in all, a solid B, maybe even a B+, with four strong A’s that leave us looking forward to yet another season of musicals in the round next summer.

The History of America

Chapter 33

The War Against Islam

            Most historians now consider that the first event that ultimately led to the war was the terrorist hijacking of four jumbo jet liners, three of which were then used as missiles that struck the twin towers in New York City and the Pentagon. 

            The 9/11 attacks, as they quickly came to be called, were, in retrospect, the work of a very small cadre of terrorists who were led by a charismatic figure named Osama bin Laden.  Bin Laden had fought with the mujahedeen against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

            He rose from that conflict to lead a group of radical believers (known as “al Qaeda,” or “the Base”).  Their numbers in the decade that followed were still small, perhaps no more than several thousand, but they found safe haven in the remote mountain regions of Afghanistan, which, by then, was dominated by the Taliban.  The Taliban practiced and enforced a form of sharia law that demanded fundamentalist adherence to the most extreme interpretations of the Koran, the religion’s holy book.

            Bin Laden allegedly developed intense anti-American attitudes when U.S. military forces embedded themselves in his native homeland, Saudi Arabia, during the first Gulf war.  That war, circa 1990, was prosecuted by the United States and a large coalition of nations (some of them Islamic from the Middle East) to reverse the takeover of a small oil rich country, Quwait, by one of its neighbors, Iraq.

            Iraq was, at the time, ruled by a ruthless dictator named Saddam Hussein.  Hussein had been supported in his takeover of control of the country, circa 1970, by the United States government, and had received tacit support from the U.S. throughout the 1980s in a bloody war against Iraq’s neighbor, Iran.

            The first Gulf war ended with the restoration of sovereign rule to Kuwait, but Hussein remained in power in Iraq.  That fact became significant in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when President George W. Bush, the son of the previous U.S. president of the same name (who had led the fight against Hussein in Gulf War I), took his country to war again in Iraq.  That war was the second to involve a heavy commitment of U.S. forces in the region at the same time.

            The first was the war in Afghanistan, which began in the months immediately following the 9/11 attacks.  It was started, at least as originally explained by Mr. Bush, to bring the al Qaeda terrorists, and their leader bin Ladin, to justice. 

            Bin Ladin was never captured or killed in that long war (the longest in the country’s history), and the reasons for its continuation changed repeatedly as U.S. presidents succeeded each other and never found a way to disengage.

            But it may have been the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Hussein that created the greatest negative consequences for the United States.  Much of the Islamic world viewed the invasion with contempt, and many observers believe that the prosecution of that war converted many moderate Muslims in the region into bin Ladin followers, if not soldiers in his organization.

            That organization grew significantly throughout the first decade of the century, with active cells operating in many countries beyond Afghanistan and its neighbor, Pakistan, which was where bin Ladin appears to have remained until his death, many years later.

            By then, his hopes for a worldwide jihad had largely been achieved.  He was aided immensely by a political movement in the United States that developed during the presidency of Barack Obama.  Obama, the country’s first black president, was felt by some on the far right of American politics to be a sympathizer with, if not a practitioner of, Islam.  Throughout his presidency, he was accused of not being an American and of being a Muslim.

            And then, in 2010, a controversy developed that led to a strong outpouring of hostility towards Muslim-Americans.  The incident concerned a cultural center that a moderate Muslim intended to build in New York City, not far from the site of the twin towers that had been felled in the 9/11 attacks.  Opposition to the construction of the center grew exponentially as right-wing politicians joined the cries against the plans for the center.

            This groundswell soon became something of a national movement, marked by many concerted acts of violence against Muslim mosques and against individuals believed to be Muslims.  Moderate politicians remained silent in the face of these acts, leading to an increase in their frequency and intensity.  President Obama did make one attempt to support the construction of the cultural center in New York, but he quickly backed away from that position when the right-wing media and members of the then-nascent Tea Party called him down for it.

            Ultimately, anti-Islamic feelings became a major political issue, even eclipsing the failing U.S. economy as an election issue that fall.

            The stage was thus set for the next al Qaeda attack, which came in the form of the dirty bomb that detonated in midtown Manhattan in the summer of 2012.  It killed 10,000 people, but the radiation that it released sickened many and killed several hundred more in the weeks following its blast.

            It was then that President Obama, facing very low poll figures in his re-election campaign, succumbed to the calls from members of both political parties and ordered that all members of the Muslim faith then residing anywhere in the United States be taken to relocation camps. 

            The war within the country began shortly thereafter, as large bands of renegade Muslims used guerilla tactics to wreak havoc in major U.S. cities. 

            Those battles consumed the country for several years as Arab states grew increasingly restive.  By 2015, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Iran and Lebanon had all broken off diplomatic relations with the U.S.  Iraq followed the following year.  With the loss of oil some of those countries had provided, the U.S. economy sunk even deeper into a second Great Depression.

            Finally, in 2017, the newly elected president, the first from the new Tea Party, declared war on all the Muslim Arab states. 

Next: Chapter 34 – The aftermath of the war

            Was John Maynard Keynes right?  Was John Kenneth Galbraith?  What about Arthur Laffer?  Milton Friedman?

            All of these men were esteemed (or at least highly regarded) economists in their day.  And each professed a different approach to economic travails such as the United States is currently experiencing. 

            Keynes revolutionized economic thinking in the 1930s by arguing that free markets alone could not be counted on to provide recoveries in times of high unemployment.  He believed that at such times, demand needed to be increased, and he urged the kind of government programs that Franklin Roosevelt adopted to curtail the worst effects of the Great Depression.

            Galbraith was a Keynesian with a decided iconoclastic bent.  He cared far less about technical measurements and much more about what a society needed as the measure of what economic policies should be pursued.  He had the ear of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s and influenced greatly the concept of a “Great Society” that Johnson promoted during his presidency. 

            Laffer was the “napkin” author (so-called because he allegedly detailed his theory on a restaurant napkin).  That theory was that lowering tax rates would actually raise government revenues, because as entrepreneurs were able to keep more of their profits, they would produce more revenue, thereby increasing actual tax revenues.  His theory, referred to as “supply-side economics” was adopted by Ronald Reagan and has been part of the Republican Party’s mantra on taxes ever since.

            Friedman was the founder of the Chicago School of Economics.  As the leading academic at the University of Chicago he called for a rejection of Keynesian principles in favor of a return to a pure market-driven economy.  His views found favor in the Reagan years and were adopted much more aggressively during the administration of George W. Bush.

            Or are none of these positions absolutely correct?  There are certainly other theories on how economies can best be managed (or not managed) to provide for the greatest wealth and prosperity for the greatest number of citizens.  And let’s not forget the over-riding influence of the Federal Reserve and its Board of Governors.  They are a force unto themselves, free to act without any oversight of any kind, the closest thing to an oligarchy within a democratic republic history may have ever known.

            Stripped of all the political rhetoric, much of which is aimed solely at putting one party in power over the other, the debate (such as it is) today is largely over economic theories.  No one denies that the American economy is struggling to recover as another summer winds down. 

            A growing number of observers are mouthing concerns about a possible, if not likely, double-dip recession, which would potentially make the 9.5 percent unemployment figures the Labor Department repeatedly reports of late seem like good news.

            Of course, it isn’t good news, especially since the “real unemployment” (that measure of the actual number of able-bodied Americans who are out of work) is most likely closer to 17 or 18 percent, which means that at least one out of every six eligible workers are spending their time in non-income producing activities.

            And those figures absolutely soar when the demographics are focused on minority populations, with upwards of one quarter (or more!) of all African-Americans unemployed.  That kind of statistic sounds more like something from a third-world nation than the greatest economic engine the world has ever known.

            But the figures don’t lie, nor do the lines at the unemployment offices across the land.  People are hurting, businesses are hurting, charities are hurting, local governments are hurting, state governments are hurting, and the elected folks in Washington, DC are squabbling about how to fix it all.

            On one side of the debate are those who favor as little government “intrusion” into the system as possible.  Their remedy is to lower taxes, reduce government spending, reduce government regulations, and generally allow the markets to straighten themselves out.  Advocates of this position have no trouble arguing against an increase in unemployment benefits while they insist that the tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens that were promulgated in 2001 must be maintained (even though they are scheduled by law to expire at the end of this year).

            On the other side are those who favor a massive increase in government “initiatives” to increase employment and to put more money in the pockets of the country’s consumers.  Advocates of this position have no trouble arguing for even larger deficits (the country is already in the red to the tune of over one trillion dollars a year) and a national debt that might exceed the entire gross national product in a very few years.

            Who’s right?  Who’s wrong? 

            If you’re the president of the country, you have to worry about those questions.  Moreover, you have to worry about whether the electorate believes you have the answers.

            Thus far in his presidency, Barack Obama has been a mix of conflicting economic theories.  His two top advisors (Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers) have prior ties to Wall Street and are generally assumed to be most protective of the financial markets. 

            Others in his inner circle may tilt more clearly to the Keynesian side of the spectrum, but their voices have not been as dominant as those on the right might claim.

            The big stimulus package that Obama and his allies in Congress pushed through last year was far less aggressive than many liberal economists wanted.  Its price tag of $787 billion was far less than Paul Krugman, recent recipient for Nobel Prize Economics, had lobbied for.  He now urges a second stimulus bill to forestall that feared double-dip recession.

            He won’t get it, of course, and maybe it would be throwing good money after bad anyway. 

            Who knows?  Everyone has a theory, but no one really knows how to get the economy back on track.  It may be, as they teach in college, the most scientific of the humanities, but it is still very much the most inexact of the sciences.