Carolina Capers: Watching at Home and on Stage

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TV SERIES

Sisters in Conflict

Becca & Rosaline (pbs.org)

Maryland (PBS Passport)

When British sisters Becca and Rosaline get the call that their mother has died on the Isle of Man, they are both mystified and sad.  Why was she there so far from home and what was she doing?  On a journey of discovery, these very different people, Rosaline, an independent career woman, and Becca, a put-upon wife and mother, disagree and rub each other the wrong way as they struggle to parse out the strands of their mother’s life and better understand each other.  

I found the tension between the sisters and their disparate world views convincingly captured.  The sisters were well cast.   Seeing Stockard Channing as friend Kathy, she who played stalwart First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the The West Wing, was an added treat.  I found this 3-episode series engrossing and enjoyable.    

French Justice

Bellefond (PBS Passport & Prime Video)

Bellefond flanked by his students (entertainment-focus.com)

Prosecutor Antoine Bellefond is so stunned by a courtroom incident, that he takes a leave of absence.  When his niece in Provence calls him for help, he returns to his hometown where his brother-in-law has been accused of murder.  Along with three of his star law students, he takes up the case and works to prove Christophe’s innocence.  

Bellefond is a diffident yet caring individual whose placid façade occasionally lights up with a smile.  His and his students’ methods are unusual to irregular, and likely not always within the realm of the law.   I found it a different take on crime investigation mixed in with the students’ foibles and attractions, sometimes for one another.   In French with subtitles, the first season is just 2 standalone episodes.  Season 2, also 2 episodes, is not yet available.

RALEIGH THEATER

Justice Theater Project

Cabaret

The Justice Theater Project presents dramas about individuals affected by social injustice.  Their Cabaret, which the Chief Penguin and I had previously seen at the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, was raw and intense.  Although set in Berlin during the rise of Nazism in 1929-30, it is timely viewing for today’s audiences.   

Sally Bowles & Kit Kat Klub dancers (asolorep.org)

Most of this company’s productions are presented on a small stage at the Umstead Park United Church of Christ.  The sets are minimal, and the sound system is basic, but the musicians and actors were passionate and fully engaged.  

I do think that the play itself spends too much time on introducing the Kit Kat Klub and the principals before it approaches the heart of the matter.  It was still a compelling performance, and Fraulein Schneider and Cliff Bradshaw were exceptionally well played characters.  Performances run through June 23rd.

Note: Header photo of TV screen courtesy of applicationsTV.

Carolina Capers: Reading & Art

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From Unravelling the Threads by Vera Weinfield

RECENT READING—D DAY

June 6th this week marked the 80th anniversary of D-Day when Allied troops landed on the Normandy Beaches and changed the outcome of the war.  Two recent novels I’ve just completed are concerned with the Holocaust.  One is set in France and has been a bestseller in France and Europe, and the other is set in Italy.  

The Postcard by Anne Berest

Author Berest (Wikipedia.com)

French novelist and writer Anne Berest was intrigued by a postcard her mother, Lelia, a noted scholar, received in 2003.  Written on the card in an unfamiliar hand were the names of four members of their extended family, Lelia’s grandparents and her aunt and uncle, all of whom were deported and killed in the concentration camps.  With her mother’s assistance, Berest goes on the hunt to find out who wrote and mailed the card and to learn more about her great grandparents, Ephraim and Emma, and her great aunt Noemie and her great uncle Jacques.  

Although the work is a novel or autobiographical fiction, it reads like nonfiction since so much of it is factual.  Berest does, however, create dialogue and flesh out situations based on the archival information the two women discover.  Central to the story is Myriam, Ephraim and Emma’s oldest child, and Leila’s mother.  Myriam survived the war and Anne Berest knew her and visited her in Provence as a child.  

The book goes back and forth in time and is an absorbing and poignant journey into family history as daughter and mother share experiences, but don’t always agree on what should be pursued or what is too painful to revisit.  The book is translated from the French.  Highly recommended!  (~JWFarrington)

Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson

Robson (Amazon.com)

The Postcard, published in 2023 in English, was on my summer reading list.  Having finished it on my Kindle, I discovered this related novel by Canadian author Jennifer Robson.  Robson’s historical novel portrays the experiences of one Jewish woman, Nina, taken into hiding by a Catholic family in 1942.  

Nina’s physician father is determined that she should be protected and makes arrangements with a friend. Having enjoyed a comfortable and sheltered childhood in Venice, Nina must now masquerade as farmer Nico’s wife. She earns her place in his family through hard work on their farm, but later is arrested, beaten, and transported to a camp in Poland. 

Nina is a fictional character, but her story was partly inspired by Robson’s son asking whether it was true that his Italian grandparents had hidden Jews during the war.  Robson’s novel reflects the extraordinary amount of research she did about real events—massacres, hangings, deportations—and is both graphic and extremely compelling.  It is a fitting companion to Berest’s book, and I recommend it. (~JWFarrington)

READERS’ RECOMMENTATIONS

Our Swedish friend is deep into Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin and calls it a must read.  It’s translated from the French and was a bestseller all over Europe.  I read it in 2022 (see blog of 4/3/22) and found it slow to get into and then fascinating and memorable.

(amazon.com)

The Chief Penguin’s Colorado cousin belongs to an international book club which meets every other month. She shared their 2024 list.  Two titles on it are:  The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese and River Sing Me Home, a historical novel about a mother’s journey to find her stolen children.    

ART OUTING

CAM Raleigh

From Samantha Everette’s Crowning Glory

The Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) is located in downtown Raleigh in a former produce storage building in the Warehouse District. Opened in 2011, it’s a non-collecting museum that offers bold and innovative exhibits from local and national contemporary artists as well as educational programming.  

On a recent visit, I surveyed a photographic study of Black women and hair, Crowning Glory, an exhibit of UNC-Chapel Hill MFA student thesis projects, and a collection of works from emerging artists in rural Robeson County, part of a project called CAMERA.  Overall, a wide diversity of styles and media here. Shown at the very top, the Vera Weinfield collage is one of her thesis works on Jewish identity.

Joyful Mysteries
Collage by Molly English (UNC MFA student)
Detail, Cleft, by Jeffrey Geller

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Note: All unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Header painting is Still by S. K. Chavis-Bullard.

Summer Reading 2024

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READING GOALS

Each June, I set myself the goal of reading a set list of books over the summer.  Most years, I read some of them, but seldom all.  Along the way, I purchase or borrow books, and they end up taking priority.  This year’s list is a mix of notable books and bestsellers, both fiction and nonfiction. 

I’ve read many of Verghese’s earlier works and almost all Toibin’s and Strout’s novels; they are favorite writers of mine!  Years ago, I read Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips for my book group and then later her Quiet Dell.  

Claire Keegan is a recent discovery, and as part of becoming a Tar Heel, I will read Wilmington’s Lie.  Sadly, Jacqueline Winspear is giving up Maisie Dobbs, detective, and the title here is her last appearance.  Overall, this list includes many writers whom I’ve read previously.  

MY SUMMER READING LIST

The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear (#18, end of the Maisie Dobbs series)

Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

The Demon of Unrest by Eric Larson (Abraham Lincoln & the months before the Civil War)

Homecoming by Kate Morton

Long Island by Colm Toibin (return of Ellis Lacey of his earlier Brooklyn)

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo (2024 Pulitzer Prize winner in biography)

Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips

North Woods by Daniel Mason

Tables for Two by Amor Towles (stories)

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

The Marriage Question by Maggie O’Farrell

The Postcard by Anne Berest (autobiographical fiction, Holocaust family)

Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin (life & politics in the 1960’s)

Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan (stories)

Wilmington’s Lie by David Zucchino

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Manhattan: Politics, Fashion, & History

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VIEWING: UK POLITICAL CRISIS

COBRA (PBS)

Anna & the PM (rottentomatoes.com)

If you like political drama and were a fan of the Danish series, Borgen, then you’d probably also enjoy COBRA.  A massive geomagnetic storm knocks out power to the entire U.K., and there are not enough new transformers to replace all the damaged ones.  Which section of the country will have to wait?  It’s a monumental crisis for British prime minister Robert Sutherland and his team, including chief of staff Anna Marshall.   

This 6-part series is action packed with nail-biting tension and personal drama.  Who is the man who just shows up on Anna’s doorstep?  What really happened to Georgia, the best friend of Sutherland’s daughter?  How far will Home Secretary Archie Glover go in attempting to become the next PM?  Finally, how does the prime minister deal with rioting and destruction and calm the country?

The title, COBRA, stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room and is used as a code for an emergency meeting of the PM and all the cabinet secretaries.  There are some familiar faces from other British series such as Victoria Hamilton, the elegantly competent Anna, who appeared in The Crown and Lark Rise to Candleford.  

This is escapism that seems eerily possible! We binge watched Season 1, the first of three seasons.

EXHIBITION: EXOTIC FASHION

Sleeping Beauties (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Dior’s Garden with a floral theme

The Costume Institute’s annual exhibit opens after the Met’s May gala.  The gala is always an extravagant display of fabric, color, and celebrities.  The exhibit also sometimes wows but not always.  This year, I appreciated the effort that went into making the exhibit immersive with a wide array of dresses from various periods and designers, but also the incorporation of videos running overhead, voiceovers, and other sounds relative to the theme of individual galleries.  Water lapping in the marine sections, insects buzzing in the nature section and so on.  Nonetheless, it was not an exhibit I loved.

Clamshell gown by Alexander McQueen
Dramatic butterfly gown
Poppies or perhaps roses?

The first space was narrow and very crowded (even though I was there right after the museum opened), so I moved through quickly.  I looked at the fashions but did not do much reading of the descriptive wall plaques.  Overall, I got the general impression of the theme, but made short work of what is a long and large exhibit.  

The gowns here are ones I found particularly striking, several of them showcasing flowers. One does wonder whether a woman could move at all in some of these creations!

EXHIBITION: SNIPPETS OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Isaac Julien’s Lessons of the Hour (Museum of Modern Art)

Tucked away into a small gallery on MoMA’s second floor is Lessons of the Hour.  British filmmaker and artist, Isaac Julien uses ten video screens of different sizes to present scenes of Frederick Douglass’s life and work.  Douglass was a 19th century abolitionist, an orator, and an author.  A Black man, he was the most photographed person of his era.  

Douglass’s life is not depicted linearly, and different images and texts appear simultaneously on the various screens.  It is possible to stand in the gallery for just a few minutes or sit on the banquette long enough to absorb more of the role this man played in the overall quest for equal rights for all people.  A worthwhile experience and one that is available into September.

Note: Header photo is a more traditional yellow Liberty gown from the 1880’s. All unattributed photos by JWFarrington.