Santa Fe Opera 2013: Morrison’s ‘Oscar,’ or the Importance of Not Being Too Earnest

Not guilty: David Daniels as Wilde in Gaol.
This and all photos by Ken Howard, courtesy of Santa Fe Opera.

Theodore Morrison’s Oscar comes to the stage of the Santa Fe Opera Festival with such good intentions, such an interesting back story, such timely subject matter, and such an opera-worthy central figure (you can’t have Strauss’ Salome without Oscar Wilde, after all) that one really wants to like the piece. Indeed, there’s much to admire in this world premiere production, particularly in the score and in the orchestrations.

But with a badly structured, often tedious libretto and an overwhelming excess of earnestness, Oscar left me quibbling. Surely Wilde was not that great a genius, I found myself thinking, though I’m enough of a fan that in college I took on the challenge of staging Salome (quite badly, I admit). And while he was unquestionably a martyr, Wilde has always struck me as a poor role model for proud gays — though that’s very much the way that Morrison and his co-librettist, John Cox, present him.

By the time we reach the opera’s finale, patience evaporates. Wilde is portrayed as increasingly saintly over the course of two acts: the concluding scene is nothing less than his apotheosis. He’s welcomed into Immortality by a chorus of white-gowned, golden-haired worthies. I had to hold my nose to keep from laughing.

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of the over-earnestness of Oscar and the degree to which this undermines the opera as a whole. For all its merits, Morrison’s score isn’t sufficiently compelling to overcome the flaws in the libretto, and even a smart, good-looking production, staged by Kevin Newbury and featuring stellar performances from William Burden, Heidi Stober, Dwayne Croft, Kevin Burdette, and in the title role, David Daniels, can’t salvage the evening.

The tragic hero’s choice: Ada Leverson (Heidi Stober)
and Frank Harris (William Burden) try to save Wilde.

Morrison is in his mid-seventies, and Oscar is his first opera, a certifiable labor of love brought to fruition in one of the most prestigious venues on earth. He waited a long time for this, and again, one wants to root for him and his work. Always tonal, always appropriate to the emotional tenor of the scenes, his music bears the influence of Stravinsky and Weill (that I noticed) — but he seems to have a short attention span, moving on to new ideas before he’s fully developed the theme at hand. In Act II, where we shift from biography to hagiography, he proved unable to sustain my interest: I confess I nodded off a few times.

Oscar seems at all times to be uncertain what it is and what it wants to do — beyond elevating Wilde to heights where he can’t breathe. Thus in Act I we get an almost Odets-like, realistic scene in the children’s nursery of Ada Leverson (Stober), complete with mundane hellos and chitchat, that leads to a psychologically revealing conversation about Oscar’s future: should he face trial, honorably, or should he flee England? A vision of his lover, Alfred “Bosie” Douglas (who has scarpered off to safety, and who is eloquently embodied by the dancer Reed Luplau, in choreography by Seán Curran) persuades Oscar to make his tragic choice — whereupon the toys in the nursery come to life and enact the trial.

This scene, the finale of Act I, is about as Brechtian as you can get, and in many respects it’s the highlight of the entire opera and its justification as a work for the stage. It also provides an extraordinary spotlight for the indispensable Kevin Burdette, as the judge — here, a jack-in-the-box. And yet in turn this scene casts unfavorable light on Act II, where Burdette plays the governor of Reading Gaol, in this telling a cartoon villain less credible than Snidely Whiplash.

Victorianisches Verfremdungseffekt:
About as Brechtian as you can get.

Indeed, overstatement is a problem throughout this opera. In the opening sequence, the Marquess of Queensbury’s minions (Aaron Pegram and Rocky Sellers) effectively blacklist Wilde from every hotel in London, warning desk clerks of reprisals and calling out the poet: “Bugger! Queer!” Had they appeared only in this scene, they would have made their point — but they keep coming back, in other guises, always calling out nasty names. It’s a struggle not to shout back, “I get it already!”

Fortunately, Burdette and Pegram also play bad guys in The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein at Santa Fe this season, so we know (if we didn’t already) that they’re capable of better. Stober and Burden (as Frank Harris) turn in thoroughly credible, beautifully sung performances in better-written scenes, but Croft is left to fend for himself.

He plays the ghost of Walt Whitman, functioning much as Che Guevara does in Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Evita, though at least in this case our narrator is known to have met our protagonist. Accounts of the meeting of Wilde and Whitman are fascinating, leaving a reader to wonder who was fooling whom. Here, Whitman is an ardent booster, and he provides background information better left to program notes.*

Most troubling is the voice type. Wilde is written for countertenor, the only one in this opera, in order to signal his otherness. But Whitman, who was just as “other” as Wilde, is written for baritone. Croft sings as well as I’ve ever heard him, but to no avail.

And so we come to Wilde himself. Openly flamboyant but not more, he was married and a father of two who fought back when he was accused of being a “somdomite” (as the misspelled note from the Marquess claimed — one of the only minute details missing from the libretto) rather than admitting his true nature. The opera finds him discovering compassion in Reading Gaol as he listens to two thieves (hello, Jesus?) and proclaiming a newfound mission once he’s liberated. Historically, of course, he never pursued any such mission. He led the remaining short years in squalor, exile, and attempted anonymity. But no matter! He’s a hero! A saint!

The trial scene, with Kevin Burdette
as Mr. Justice Sir Alfred Wills.

Certainly the scenes between Daniels and Luplau (whose Bosie takes on several guises, including that of Death) elicit the still-novel frisson of recognition for gay men who watch this opera, especially now, when the rights of couples are being recognized in so many parts of the United States. Yes, you think, that’s a relationship not entirely unlike my own, right up there on the stage where I’m accustomed to seeing nobody but men and women. Yet Oscar and Bosie’s love is never depicted with sufficient truth or feeling to move beyond what amounts to titillation.

This takes nothing away from Daniels’ performance, which is fully committed and sung with warmth and character. He’s onstage almost constantly, and one certainly admires his dedication. (And stamina!) Among the qualities that set him apart — and on the path to superstardom — at the start of his career, was his burnished, heroic virility, even while he sang in “feminine” registers, and he accentuated that by keeping a scruffy beard. Here, the beard is shaven clean away, the better to look like Wilde. But no razor, nor even his acting, nor even his dancing (in the best of the sequences with Bosie) can save this character or this opera.

We are talking about Oscar Wilde here, aren’t we? Well, no. Not really. It’s striking that, beyond the structure and aims of the libretto, Morrison and Cox fail at what might have been expected to be the easiest task: somehow they manage to quote liberally from their historical sources with barely a trace of wit. (For that, you think, Wilde might sue for libel — and win.) Oscar gets off one epigram, at the end of the opera, and while it’s welcome in the circumstance, it’s too late to do much good.

Evan Rogister conducts with the utmost sympathy, and he provides a driving force that the score itself lacks. David Korins’ set design is best in its discovery of the visual parallels between a Victorian library and a Victorian prison. David C. Woolard’s costumes are hit and miss, gorgeous in the case of Leverson’s gown, ingenious in the case of the toy jury, but downright ugly in the case of Wilde’s purple jacket and pearl-white overcoat, and nearly ludicrous in the case of the angelic Immortals.

It’s because of that immortality that Whitman wears a pale-cream suit. Yet ultimately, it doesn’t matter that Whitman looks like Mark Twain: we’re watching an opera about historical figures, in which truth has nothing to do with anything. Oscar is, as Wilde might put it, a trivial opera about serious people.

Theodore Morrison’s Oscar plays again August 12 and 17.
It’s unlikely you’ll get another opportunity to hear it. For more information and tickets, click here.

NOTE: Fort Worth Opera fans will want to know that tenor David Blalock sings one of the prisoners in Act II. He does so with a clear, open voice and great style — of course.

*I’m reminded of director Lee Blakeley’s decision to set Santa Fe’s new production of The Grand Duchess in the United States. Is there some prevailing belief that Santa Fe audiences won’t find a story compelling if there’s not something American in it? If so, then I’ve all the more reason to be grateful that La Donna del Lago isn’t depicted as a Laker Girl.

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Where Credit Is Due: The Wedding of Pedro Zamora

Pedro Zamora

In the days leading up to the arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday in two cases concerning equal rights for gay married couples in the United States, we heard a lot about the dramatic shift in popular acceptance of gay marriage and of homosexual rights in general. In the past few years, polls have shown a rapid increase in support, especially among young people, and commentators observe that one factor in this trend is surely the increasing visibility of gays in popular culture, especially on television. Will & Grace is often cited as an example of the mainstreaming of gays on TV, as are Ugly Betty and the current Glee, to say nothing of talk shows (notably Ellen) and reality TV.

Seldom mentioned is Pedro Zamora (1972–94), a Cuban–American AIDS activist who used the platform of MTV’s Real World to educate audiences about the epidemic that had already claimed him. From the start, it became almost impossible not to sympathize with him. He was intelligent, well spoken, almost painfully handsome — and he was dying. Viewers watched him cope with his disease while coping simultaneously with a houseful of strangers in San Francisco, a continent away from his Miami home. The stress of constant clashes with the notorious Puck (ranked in some surveys among the top TV villains of all time) made him fear for his health and nearly led him to leave the show. The roommates banished Puck instead.

Today Zamora occupies an uneasy ground between secular sainthood (his canonization began while he lived) and oblivious obscurity. He’s most often remembered for putting a recognizable face on AIDS for millions of young viewers — for sending the message that, if this could happen to him, it could happen to you, too. But Pedro Zamora did something else pioneering: he exchanged vows with his partner, Sean Sasser, on national television in 1994.

The cast of MTV’s Real World: San Francisco.

This was a commitment ceremony, not recognized as marriage by any state in the Union, and it would take another seven years before the Netherlands became the first national government to grant same-sex marriages. But no one who watched Pedro and Sean doubted the significance or sincerity of the words they spoke or the feelings they shared. These were people who wanted to stand together before the world, for the rest of their lives — the way anyone else wants to be married.

Who could object to that? Some people, certainly, could and still can. But the process of chipping away at prejudice and false perception had begun.

A new season of Real World starts this week, and in the proliferation of housemates and conflicts over the intervening years, Pedro Zamora’s story has receded into the background of our collective memory. However, the show’s producers prepared a tribute program, shortly after his death, and in 2008, MTV aired a feature film, in which actors played out the scenes of Zamora’s life, including those that the Real World cameras never saw.* A number of charitable organizations grew up in Zamora’s name, including the Pedro Zamora Foundation, launched by three of his Real World roommates. One of these, Judd Winick, has carried Zamora’s memory and spread his educational messages into several comic books, including one acclaimed graphic novel that tells Zamora’s story. Another rooommate, Pam Ling, became a doctor engaged in AIDS research.

All these tributes have focused primarily on AIDS, a disease that continues to claim too many young lives, despite the efforts of Zamora and his friends. I don’t dispute the emphasis. But Zamora’s role as a pioneer in the fight for marriage equality was as real as anything that ever happened on reality TV, and the kids who watched in 1994 are voters now.

Whether you remember the wedding, whether it’s lodged in the back of your consciousness or whether it was just floating out there in the pop culture ether, it helped to make a difference, one that we see today. And it’s one more way that Pedro Zamora left the real world a better place than he found it.

A poster for the movie Pedro.

*NOTE: My friends Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer were among the producers of the Pedro movie, and Richard has a cameo role in it. The film also played at the Toronto Film Festival. Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for Gus Van Sant’s Milk, co-wrote Pedro, but for all the strengths of both films, I don’t find anything in them to be as compelling as the documentary footage from The Times of Harvey Milk and Real World: San Francisco.

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Getting the Facts Straight at CNN

The ooops…

My sympathies and condolences go out to everyone at CNN involved in the premature (and false) announcement that the Supreme Court had overruled the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare, also known as Romneycare). Hearing that the Justices would not uphold the law under the Commerce Clause, CNN journalists jumped the gun: waiting just a few minutes would have given them time to understand the actual verdict, but by then their anchor and reporters were already discussing the impact of the “failure” on the President’s reelection campaign.

There’s a lesson to be learned here, but little chance that anyone in journalism will apply it. The great goal in newsrooms everywhere is to be first. A scoop means you’ve got an exclusive, at least until somebody else reports the story, and in the dominant mindset, firsts and exclusives automatically translate to success. I never fully understood this thinking when I worked at CBS, though I can confirm that it’s prevalent to the point of universality. The belief holds that readers, listeners, and/or viewers will seek out the source that reports first. Period.

… And the do-over.

Question this thinking and the chances are good you’ll be ignored — or scorned. From time to time someone will make a case for accuracy, that audiences ultimately trust the news organization that gets the story right. But journalism is a highly competitive business, with its own set of rules and intense pressures, and to put it bluntly, CNN and CBS aren’t competing with The Christian Science Monitor.

So I’m not joining in the chorus that’s caroling now at CNN’s expense. This could have happened to almost anybody, at any news organization, and of course it did happen, simultaneously, over at FOX News. Some liberal voices have claimed that FOX’s error stemmed from political bias and/or wishful thinking, but really, this is the nature of the business, and it’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

It could happen to anybody, and it probably will.

A smaller change, yet significant in its way, is CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s admission this week that he’s gay. As I noted in a roundabout way in a blog essay a few months ago, Cooper has simultaneously lived openly as a gay man in New York and yet refused to make a public statement: resisting all manner of appeals and summons to confess, he has defined what some critics describe as the “glass closet.”

Again, if Anderson Cooper looked like Wolf Blitzer, we probably wouldn’t care quite so much. But there he was, hanging with Kathy Griffin, riding motorcycles all over town with his boyfriend, giggling like a girl, and working a black T-shirt like a personal fitness trainer — while saying nothing.

Cooper may have hoped to avoid what Dan Rather used to call the Anchor Syndrome (“I have found the story, and I am it”), and yet it became clear long ago that, the more he ducked the question, the bigger the story got. Perversely, perhaps, the very privacy and neutrality he sought would have come to him more easily if he’d just spoken up and let us all move on.

Now we can. In a lengthy e-mail to columnist Andrew Sullivan, Cooper detailed his reasons for staying in the closet, and his reasons for coming out of it. I don’t agree with all of his reasoning, though he presents his arguments in a thoughtful, at times eloquent way.

Little Anderson, Gay at Last.

Among other things, he says that he preferred to “blend in” while on assignment, and I sympathize with him to at least this extent: during my time at CBS News, I didn’t go around flaunting my sexual identity, either. During my visits to Cuba, for example, I was so certain of the scrutiny of constant surveillance that I didn’t even play with myself, much less with anyone else. Fidel Castro had a history of throwing homosexuals into prison, and I wasn’t going to test my luck.

Is Cooper even more eloquent when he details his reasons to come out, or do I respond so warmly merely because I agree with him? We live in a time of greater freedoms but also of great opposition, sometimes violent. Should one man’s right to privacy (which I don’t contest) outweigh the violated rights of thousands of gay Americans? I’m as uncomfortable as Cooper is with the notion that celebrity entails a mandate to publicity or an authorization to advocacy. But because he’s a public figure, in certain circumstances — like belonging to an embattled minority — that position demands leadership. He’s also a journalist, and frankly to dodge the truth so often and so artlessly looks bad. “The fact is, I’m gay,” he wrote, and facts are his calling.

We’ll see whether or how much this announcement affects his work: very little if at all, I expect. Beyond that, there’s a chance that, by coming to the end of his evolution on this subject, he may wield a more meaningful influence — just as President Obama’s “evolution” on marriage equality seems to have led to increased public support for that issue. Moreover, Cooper says he was concerned that his continuing silence led others to believe he was ashamed of his identity. So now there’s a chance, too, that some kid watching him today will feel more confident, less alone, whether choosing to live openly as gay or choosing to pursue a crazy, nearly obsolete line of work like journalism.

The fact is, such chances are worth taking, and Anderson Cooper took his time but got it right.

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If Sally from Sondheim’s ‘Follies’ Had a Sassy Gay Friend

Brian Gallivan, the creator of the Sassy Gay Friend

It’s hard to imagine that Sally Durant Plummer doesn’t have a Sassy Gay Friend. After all, she’s the main character in Follies, a cult musical by Stephen Sondheim. And she’s been portrayed by iconic divas like Bernadette Peters (in the current Broadway revival) and Barbara Cook. Sally should be positively swarming with gay friends.

But she doesn’t have one. How else to explain Sally’s behavior? (Or that dress?) Clearly, she needs a Sassy Gay Friend — just like the popular Second City character-turned-pitchman — to set her straight, just the way he’s done for so many heroines of Shakespeare.

In Follies, the scene might go something like this.

Bernadette as Sally on Broadway

SALLY and BEN: How many mornings
Are there still to come!
How much time can we hope that there will be?
Not much time, but it's time enough for me —

SASSY GAY FRIEND: Stop it, stop it, stop it! What are you doing?

SALLY: Why, I’m staking everything on a chance at late-life happiness with Ben!

BEN: That’s right.

SASSY: I’m not talking to you — you already have a Sassy Gay Friend!

BEN: I do??

SASSY: Have you taken a good look at your wife lately? She’s like me in a dress. But back to you, Sally. How does your husband feel about your running away with Ben?

SALLY: He’ll just have to understand. Buddy always understands everything. (She stifles a yawn.)

SASSY: Right. Which is why it’s such a good idea to leave him, I guess.

SALLY: Well —

Bernadette with Ron Raines as Ben

SASSY: This isn’t the first time you and Ben were going to run off together, is it?

SALLY: Why, no. Thirty years ago, we were going to get married.

SASSY: Mm-hmmm. And how’d that work out for you?

SALLY: Uh … Ben threw me over for Phyllis.

SASSY: And what’s changed since the last time you and Ben saw each other?

SALLY: Why — I’m much wiser and more mature, now that I’ve spent 30 years sitting on my ass in the suburbs!

SASSY: Which naturally means you still have the figure of a 19-year-old showgirl?

SALLY: Er — well —

SASSY: Unless of course you’re Bernadette, in which case we’ll just suspend our disbelief for a couple of hours now, shall we?

BEN: I think Sally looks just fine.

SASSY: Don’t make me hurt you, Ben. Now Sally, tell me how you spend your mornings.

SALLY: Well, sometimes I stand in the middle of the floor, not going left, not going right.

SASSY: That’s because you’re depressed, girlfriend!

SALLY: I am?

SASSY: Trying putting Prozac in that coffee cup, sister!

SALLY: Mmm! It’s much tastier than Sweet’n’Low!

SASSY: Meanwhile, back to you, Ben. You’re not really going to leave Phyllis, are you?

BEN (humming thoughtfully): Leave her? Leave her? How could I leave her? Uh — maybe for a couple of nights.

SASSY: Sally’s talking about forever, Ben!

BEN: But that would be the end of my political career!

SALLY (as the Prozac takes effect): You’re really not very nice, Ben, are you? And to think I might have left the most patient, adorable husband in the history of Broadway musical comedy — I jeopardized the happiness of four people — just for a manipulative blowhard like you! What was I thinking?

SASSY: Say it with me, Sally. You were a stupid bitch.

SALLY: Ha! I was a stupid bitch!

SASSY: But not anymore! Now, you’re —

SALLY: I — I’m here?

SASSY: Say it!

SALLY (sings): I’ve run the gamut, A to Z
Three cheers and dammit, c’est la vie!
I got through all of last year, and I’m here.
Lord knows at least I was there, and I’m here!
Look who’s here!
I’m still here!

SASSY (aside, while SALLY brings down the house): And remember, folks, we owe it all to Prozac! It’s like MiO© liquid beverage enhancer with a prescription-strength kick!

THE END

Yes, if only Sally had a Sassy Gay Friend, or Prozac,
she might look very much like this:
Elaine Paige as Carlotta

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Carter’s ‘Proust in Love’

Bad Boyfriend

Ordinarily when reading a biography, I feel guilty for succumbing to the usually irresistible temptation to skip to the juicy parts. How can I justify my interest in the subject’s sex life? William C. Carter, who has already written a major biography of Marcel Proust, made my reading easier with a follow-up, Proust in Love (Yale, 2006), that is nothing but juicy parts — plus a full chapter at the end to make sure his readers don’t suffer morning-after regrets.

The justification proves hardly necessary. After all, A la Recherche du temps perdu is itself full of juicy bits, aberrant sexual practices and obsessive love affairs; and because the novel overall signals its origins (and minute interest) in Proust’s personal experience, there’s every reason to believe that studying his sex life will help us to understand his novel better.

The Proust who emerges from Carter’s book is truly terrible boyfriend material. Clingy, demanding, possessive, jealous, whiny, imperious, peevish, and manipulative from the start, and not much improved by age, impotence, infirmity, and an increasingly obsessive dedication to his art. (And you remember that “urban legend” about Proust’s needing to torture rats in order to get off? It turns out to be true. Talk about a deal-breaker.)

“Buncht,” a.k.a. “Bunibuls”: Reynaldo Hahn, by Nadar
Without him, there would be no “A Chloris.”
(And Susan Graham would have to find some other way to save my life.)

Proust fell in love with men but insisted he was straight (to the point of fighting a duel to defend his own honor). In his youth, he wrote panting letters to pretty boys, but as an adult he practiced greater circumspection, making it hard for his biographer to know whether he actually slept with some of these fellows or merely pined for them, or whether he ever slept with a woman at all.

The Narrator of the Recherche is identified in the first person singular, and yet in Carter’s depictions, the real-life Proust in love most closely resembles the Baron de Charlus; throughout the novel, Carter observes, it’s fascinating to see the author pick out so many of his own worst characteristics and treat them so satirically.

In Proust in Love, we certainly gain a greater appreciation for Albertine, the Narrator’s mistress and the great love of his life. Piece by piece, Carter sets out the case (which hitherto I’d seen primarily as an unsubstantiated but oft-repeated assertion) that Albertine is modeled on Alfred Agostinelli, Proust’s chauffeur and secretary, an amateur aviator who died in a crash. Like Albertine, Agostinelli was sexually attracted to women — dooming to hopelessness both Proust’s and the Narrator’s loves — and Carter persuasively links passages from the novel with incidents from life. Thus, while warning against the widespread but controversial tendency to identify all of Proust’s female characters as modeled on real-life men (such as Agostinelli), Carter sometimes makes it difficult to do otherwise.

Despite all the devotion and drama in the relationship with Agostinelli, I came away from Carter’s book believing that the truest loves of Proust’s life were the composer Reynaldo Hahn, with whom Proust enjoyed the closest thing to a “normal” boyfriend relationship, and who turns out to have been much closer in age to the novelist than I’d realized; and Proust’s own mother, for whom the author’s feelings ran so deep that he divided her into two characters, the Narrator’s Mother and beloved Grandmother, whose death is one of the most powerful sequences in the novel.

Elisabeth, Comtesse de Greffulhe, in a photo by Nadar:
One of the principal models for Proust’s Duchesse de Guermantes,
and it’s easy to see why.

Proust in Love is terrific, easily as entertaining as it is informative, and I’ve got a feeling Carter wouldn’t mind my saying so. He does an excellent job of addressing a knowledgeable but not strictly academic readership: you probably need to read the Recherche before you read Proust in Love, but you don’t need to have read much of the surrounding criticism, and Carter never stoops to lit-crit jargon.*

Until now, this reader has avoided almost every word of Proust criticism and most biography. (I’m sorry I didn’t avoid the TV miniseries.) Once I’d finished A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, or thereabouts, I became curious about the real-life models for some of the characters, and I consulted a few albums, most illustrated with portraits by the Nadar photography studio, as well as reproductions of art works to which Proust refers. After I finished the Recherche, I made the pilgrimage to Illiers-Combray, too, to see the house where “Tante Léonie” lived and to see the “Guermantes Way” and “Swann’s Way” for myself. Perplexingly, it’s almost impossible to find madeleines anywhere in the old part of town. (Don’t these people understand the needs of literary tourists? Changing the name of the town wasn’t enough!)

Bellini’s portrait of Mohammed II:
Charles Swann is said to resemble him.
(He’s also the male lead in Rossini’s Le Siège de Corinth.)

Most importantly, while reading the Recherche I played recordings of music that might have inspired Proust — but for me, the “little phrase of M. Vinteuil” will always be a Chopin nocturne (Opus 9, Number 1), as evocative for me as any of the signifiers in the novel could be for Swann or the Narrator.

In short, I’m not sure how much biography or criticism one needs to appreciate Proust: the Recherche isn’t Finnegan’s Wake, and with very little help from outside resources, Proust managed to transform my way of understanding the world. Nobody has usurped his influence on my consciousness yet. Do we really need to know who the real Mme Verdurin was, or what, precisely, Robert de Saint-Loup did with Charlie Morel? Ultimately, isn’t Proust’s perspective sufficient, or nearly enough so? Carter himself believes that, I think. What counts most is the relationship between Proust and the reader.

But that said — I’m glad I never dated the guy.



*NOTE: I was reminded that one of my professors, the late Carolyn Heilbrun, often admonished her students to be more welcoming to general readers: “We have to stop speaking only to ourselves!”

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Elizabeth Taylor

My father used to complain bitterly that, when he was growing up, the actress Elizabeth Taylor was routinely identified in the press as being older than he — until by some mysterious means, she became two years younger than he. True to form, Taylor died at age 79 today — on my dad’s 81st birthday.

With Taylor passes a kind of Hollywood stardom; it’s hard to imagine another actor’s ever attaining comparable stature. Our notions of glamour are so changed, studio controls more limited, and stars’ relationship with the (vastly expanded, less disciplined) entertainment press so much more contentious. Does any movie star today know how to work the press as expertly as Taylor? Has any star been schooled, as Taylor was, since childhood?

Taylor got bad press in her time, of course, but she knew how to keep herself in the public eye for seven decades, and she did so by choice, with specific goals in mind. Celebrity drew audiences to her movies, which in turn gave her the bankability to make more movies; later, she used celebrity to promote the organizations she supported and the causes in which she believed.

Her ability as an actress was almost beside the point, and I, for one, wasn’t particularly an admirer. Her line readings were most often unnatural, and her voice grates on my nerves. She did come up with a handful of good performances, though not always when you expect her to do so, and the directors who used her most wisely (and least riskily) were those who presented her simply for what she was, an object of beauty.

With Clift in A Place in the Sun

In George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun, she functions primarily as a symbol of the elusive American dream. Of course Montgomery Clift yearns to possess her! And yet what throws the movie’s dynamic into another sphere isn’t what she says or does but that she looks so much like him. When he looks into her eyes, he sees himself, another, better self, with all the rough edges polished away: richer, more graceful, pampered, and more feminine. None of this has anything to do with Taylor’s acting talent.

Clift was one of her favorite co-stars, and while most of the tributes written to her in the coming days will focus inevitably on Taylor’s love life, I find her relationships with gay men to be in some ways more indicative of the woman’s true character (in so far as I can divine it). She forged lasting bonds with gay men early on, beginning with Roddy McDowall, and she seems to have learned plenty from them. Not least, this: that if people were going to be judged on the basis of their love lives, she’d be in trouble, too.

With Hepburn and Clift in Suddenly, Last Summer

She showed her loyalty to Clift by putting up her own salary as a guarantee when no studio would touch him; she showed her concern for another co-star, Rock Hudson, by becoming an AIDS activist in the mid-1980s.

At the time, this was hardly a chic or easy choice. Hollywood was so ignorant, and America so terrified, that another of Hudson’s co-stars worried publicly about a kissing scene. Our Hollywood President wouldn’t even mention the disease. But Taylor didn’t back away, and she wound up forging the path that other stars have followed since.

Caring for the sick and wounded:
As Rebecca in Ivanhoe

Through her time, effort, and example, Taylor didn’t merely raise public awareness of an epidemic — though that would have been enough to earn her my grateful respect. She raised money, lots of it, accepting contributions the way she used to accept gifts on the movie set (daily — or else!), and she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research, amfAR. Hollywood never offered her a role more heroic or dramatically effective.

And yet, as we review her well-publicized life, it becomes clear: one couldn’t have had the do-gooder without also having the glamorous star, the serial wife, the perpetual tabloid headline. I’m sorry to see her go.

With Burton in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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‘Glee’-nalysis: Blame It on the Blaine

It may look as if it was inevitable …

Being Glee-deprived in France — where the series has yet to make its debut and where alternative means of viewing, such as Hulu, don’t work — I’m forced to rely on friends’ reports and to putter around the Internet in order to keep up with the show. If there’s an advantage to this, it’s twofold: I get more gossip than I’d ordinarily bother with, and I’m a comparatively objective observer of the ongoing phenomenon that is Glee.

This week’s episode featured the culmination in a plot that’s been building for a few months: the gay romance between Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine (Darren Criss) has at last been sealed with a kiss. Across the Internet, you can practically hear the squeals of — well, glee. But what strikes me is that the union of these characters was by no means a foregone conclusion, and it’s my theory that, in fact, the newly minted Super Couple “Klaine” (also known as “Blurt”) wasn’t the producers’ original plan but an improvised response to the unexpected, overwhelming audience enthusiasm for Darren Criss.

… But was it?
(All images here from AfterElton.com, an indispensable source of Glee stuff.)

A great deal of Glee seems to be written on the fly, despite the show’s many hiatuses that, you’d think, would give the writers plenty of time to devise long-term story arcs and to strategize characterization. Instead, it seems to me that, when the show goes on break, the writers put their brains on hold: there’s a rushed, reckless feel to most of the scripting. This is why there’s so little consistency, episode to episode and scene to scene, and why certain plots (Terri Schuester’s fake pregnancy, Emma’s marriage to the dentist, etc.) get ignored for such long periods.

The upside is that the show has greater flexibility, as we can see in the emergence of such characters as Brittany (Heather Morris) and Mike Chang (Harry Shum, Jr.): both were backup dancers, mostly used as window dressing, but favorable audience response encouraged the producers to move them center-stage. In Brittany’s case, a couple of random lines led first to a mostly-comic scene and from there a romantic subplot with another erstwhile-minor character, Santana (Naya Rivera).

Song suggestion for Amber Riley: “Don’t Look Me Over”
(It worked for Dionne Warwick.)

But in such a large ensemble cast, the more time the show devotes to Brittany and Santana, the less time it can devote to Mercedes (the appealing Amber Riley), Emma (the sublime Jayma Mays), or even the original breakout character, Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), whose appearances are mostly limited now to implausible or intrusive outbursts. Sue still gets laughs, even though her scenes don’t necessarily make any sense.

A very, very few story arcs in the series show any evidence of authorial care and productorial supervision: one of these has been the bullying plotline that focused on McKinley High School’s only out gay student, Kurt. This was planned far in advance and announced to sympathetic columnists and Internet publications; when the episodes began to air, they coincided with a headline-grabbing rash of gay teen suicides and heightened national awareness of bullying. There was no chance that Glee would get distracted from this plot (as it has from so many others).

Kurt’s last Valentine’s as a singleton?

But Blaine wasn’t the resolution the producers had in mind. They’d been planting gossip items for months: Kurt was going to get a boyfriend, the boyfriend was a football player, they’d become a power couple around the school. Fantasy wish fulfillment!

They teased our expectations with the introduction of a new character, Sam (Chord Overstreet), in the first episode of the new season. Every character in the series, and most of the Internet, assumed that Sam was gay, and certainly he was presented onscreen as if he were a G-rated Czech porn model. But — jailbait and switch — he started to date Quinn (Dianna Agron), who is very, very much a girl.

Holding hands from the minute they met.

This was when the bullying plotline started to kick in: Karofsky (Max Adler), a football player who’d previously been an extra in the series, began to attack and to threaten Kurt. Gradually, it emerged that Karofsky was insecure about his own sexuality, and in one memorable scene, he stopped harassing Kurt long enough to kiss him.

We got some After-School Special drama, then, as Mr. Schuester and Sue Sylvester attempted to help Kurt, before Kurt sought refuge at Dalton Academy. As one who was himself bullied in public school, I can confirm that private schools start to seem like an earthly paradise where sensitive, artistic boys can live in peace and harmony — and that’s exactly how Dalton has been portrayed on Glee.

The Wes Mason of Pop Music
I first suggested this as a joke: curly-haired straight guys in iconic gay roles, etc.
Turns out they went to school together, and Wes does an uncanny Darren Criss imitation. Glee: The Opera, anyone?

But setting isn’t character, much less drama, and so the sterling qualities of Dalton Academy were consolidated in one person, Blaine. As the bullying plotline continued, he became a mentor to Kurt, and proved more effective than the school administrators when it came to confronting Karofsky. Sterling indeed, and he had no bad qualities whatever: “Saint Blaine,” the Internet started calling him.

Nobody bothered to round out the character, because nobody expected him to stick around. My hunch is that, at some point, the producers planned for Kurt to leave Dalton (possibly when he realized that Blaine gets all the solos in their glee club, the Warblers, a.k.a “Blaine and the Pips”). Once back at McKinley — Kurt would start to date Karofsky. Which is more or less exactly what the producers whispered to the TV columnists, months ago.

The kiss that didn’t count: Adler and Colfer

I’m not sorry that this plotline has been abandoned. Yes, innumerable gay-bashing preachers and politicians prove frequently that many of the worst bullies are closet cases. But if you’re a kid watching Glee, that’s not a reliable rule (much less a remedy) when you’re being bullied — and you surely shouldn’t plan on dating your bully.*

What nobody involved in the show seemed to have anticipated was the supernova starburst that was Darren Criss’ performance as Blaine. In retrospect, this was foolish. This good-looking, seemingly perfect guy is singing — directly to wounded, deserving little Kurt — about how he wants to be his Valentine in tight blue jeans. And you don’t expect the Glee audience to start rooting for the boys to get together?

Moreover, there was an important financial consideration. Glee’s business model is diversification: it’s not merely a TV show, it’s also a hugely profitable music sales machine. (I’m betting that, if Ugly Betty had sold records, it would still be on the air.) Criss’ “Teenage Dream” and his other Glee numbers became instant bestsellers on iTunes and other sites. Lose the character after a couple of episodes, and the producers would lose that potential income. So, shortly after his first episode aired, Criss was given a long-term contract.

The trouble was that nobody knew what to do with him — at least, not for the next several episodes. The remainder of the Karofsky plot was quickly erased (though he did appear prominently in the Super Bowl episode), while musical numbers for Criss were jammed in wherever possible. Viewers complained that Criss’ songs seemed pasted onto the show — because they were. And forget about characterizing any of the other Dalton Warblers. There wasn’t enough time.

Only a few episodes ago did we start to see scripts that were written in the Modern Era, A.C. (After Criss), and they address head-on Kurt’s growing crush on Blaine — which of course mirrors the audience’s crush on him — as well as the need to make the character less perfect, more fully dimensional.

So we got Blaine falling for the guy at the Gap store, Blaine kissing Rachel, Blaine doing all sorts of things that wouldn’t ever have been done by the precocious paragon we met in his first appearances. Only now — just in time for the spring hiatus — has Blaine fallen for Kurt. (Mirroring the audience’s growing emotional investment in that character and in Colfer himself.)

Falling into the Gap

That’s my theory, anyway. It must be a disappointment for Max Adler, just as it must be for Amber Riley to get shoved aside so often. And yet it’s exciting for the rest of us to witness not one but two stars on the ascent: both Chris Colfer and Darren Criss make Glee worth watching. And I mean to do just that, as soon as I can.

Sing out!

*NOTE: Lest it be forgotten, General Hospital’s Luke and Laura got their start as the original Super Couple when he raped her. Where do TV writers come up with these ideas, anyway?

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David Kato & the Legacy of Colonialism

David Kato

The Ugandan gay rights leader David Kato has been beaten to death in his home, in what police are describing as a likely robbery but others insist is a hate crime. Like many African nations, Uganda has institutionalized homophobia and seems determined to crack down even harder: its parliament is currently considering legislation that would lead to the execution of homosexuals. This comes on the heels of a visit in 2009 by American evangelicals who, speaking to receptive crowds, may have given freer rein than usual to their anti-gay rhetoric, turning up the heat on an already raging fire. While the Americans disavow responsibility for an upturn in repression and violence, many Ugandan legislators are quick to give them credit.

These Americans are only the latest Westerners to fuel homophobia in Africa, and indeed the list is long of those who should bear responsibility, though many of the worst culprits are long dead. Black Africans are able to convince themselves that homosexuality is something forced upon them by Europeans — because, during the colonial period, it very often was.

The 19th century especially saw Africa carved up by European nations who imposed European values on and generally exploited African peoples. The resentment is still felt today, and it helps to explain Robert Mugabe’s durability in Zimbabwe: he blames almost everything on the British, and much of the time, he’s gotten away with this strategy.

European exploitation wasn’t merely economic and political; it was also sexual. Generations of fortune-seeking, empire-building European bachelors went to Africa and found themselves dusky mistresses, as the novels of the time confirm again and again: Africa was a place to do what a man couldn’t in Europe. Keeping a mistress in London, Brussels, or Paris was an expensive proposition, but in the colonies an ambitious young man of limited means could afford a small harem — or simply rape a woman when the fancy struck him.

Blame this guy: Cecil Rhodes

But if a man’s taste tended to buggery, Africa must have beckoned all the more strongly. Colonial society already dictated submission, and an African youth wouldn’t be able to blackmail or to press charges against the man who approached or abused him. (Who would believe a black boy’s word against that of a white man?) Mores being what they are, these stories aren’t often told, still less frequently recorded: if in 1894, homosexual love “dare[d] not speak its name” in Britain, then homosexual rape kept even more silent. But the resentment persists today, and it can be seen throughout the continent — even among leaders of comparatively tolerant South Africa.

Buggery became then a kind of symbol for the exploitation and abuse of the colonial period. It seemed the worst kind of rape, because it was perceived as subjugating and feminizing men. And it has been easy for Africans to believe that the sexuality, like the act itself, was unnatural, imported, imposed, and white.

Much the same could be said of Christianity, but many Africans in post-colonial times have been able to hold to their faith in a white God who promises to reward their suffering (later) and whose Bible takes a dim (albeit debatable) view of homosexuality. It’s because of this background especially that American evangelicals bear an extra responsibility for what they say and do in Africa, whatever their intentions may be.*

David Kato tried to make a difference in this poisonous atmosphere — in a very real sense, he wanted to move Uganda farther than ever from its colonial past, toward a more enlightened, open, and egalitarian future. It’s possible that the Ugandan police are correct, and that despite the threats Kato faced, from individuals and institutions high and low, his murder had nothing to do with his civil rights campaign or with his sexuality. But it will be hard to prove, and harder still to guarantee that no more Ugandan advocates for gay rights become martyrs instead.

The Independent Imperialist, Léopold II of Belgium:
African colonies were his property as a private citizen.
Léopold’s brutal regime horrified Mark Twain, who pointed to Belgium as a cautionary model: if the U.S. acquired foreign territory, Twain feared, Americans would be no better than the Belgians.

*NOTE: That the evangelicals in question still aren’t thinking before they speak can be understood from a statement made by Don Schmierer, as reported in the New York Times. While decrying Kato’s death, he also depicted himself as a victim, saying he felt he’d been “bludgeoned” by critics. Considering that Kato was killed with a hammer to the head, Schmierer’s word choice is regrettable at best.

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Epstein & Friedman’s ‘Howl’

James Franco (right) as Ginsberg,
with Broadway star Aaron Tveit as Peter Orlovsky
These pictures recreate a series of photos of the real Orlovsky and Ginsberg.

I suspect that writer–directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman meant for audiences to leave their film Howl in a cheery mood. There’s a happy ending, after all: good (freedom of speech) triumphs over evil (censorship), a controversial poem endures to find general acclaim, and a lonely artist finds true love, regardless of the fact that, in real life, he once cruised me in an East Village coffee shop. What’s not to be happy about?

But perhaps the filmmakers weren’t expecting writers in their audience — or anyway, not unpublished ones. At the end of the movie, Allen Ginsberg (our protagonist, portrayed by James Franco, himself a writer) suggests that superior art — that which is honest, meaningful, true — is created only when the artist stops giving a damn what other people think of him. Ginsberg is able to write “Howl,” he says, only because he believes his disapproving father will never see it. The only durable censorship may be that which comes from within.


With the benefit of hindsight, we know that, once the poem is published, Ginsberg’s career is launched and his stature assured, while he is still a young man. Not all of us are that lucky, and I left the theater regretting the books I didn’t write. Most exceptionally, I wished that I’d been able to read the shooting script while I watched the movie, less for the poem (which I’d read for the first time only a few weeks ago*) than for the eternal verities that Ginsberg and other characters express so eloquently.

Epstein and Freidman are best known as documentarians (The Times of Harvey Milk, Threads from the Quilt, The Celluloid Closet). Their present film is a fairly daring conflation of genres: part biopic (in accordance with time-honored Hollywood tradition, all the actors are much, much better-looking than their real-life counterparts), part documentary (the dialogue is taken from court transcripts and a long interview with the poet), part recitation, part animated explication du texte. Glancing over the Internet, I see that this approach confounded some critics, though I found it successful.

Certainly the trial scenes, for all their documentary integrity, are more compelling than transcripts when enacted by the likes of Jon Hamm and (especially) David Strathairn, as the prosecutor in over his head and all-too aware of it. The animated sequences were no less beautiful when over-literal, which they sometimes were. As a couple of exchanges in the trial scenes make clear, looking for literal meaning in this poem is its own particular fool’s errand; better to give oneself over to the music of the language.

Hamm (standing) and Strathairn (seated)

Franco does just that in a recreation of the first public reading of “Howl”: he gives us something very much like an extended jazz solo. He delights in the sounds and the rhythms for their own sake, and while he really doesn’t look anything at all like Ginsberg, he captures the voice so precisely that, at the end of the movie when we hear the real poet, off-camera at first, I thought it was still Franco speaking. He remains one of the most intriguing actors working today, and it seems more and more as if his own artistry has been liberated in recent years. He pursues the projects that please him, regardless of career or commercial considerations that rule most other stars his age; the results are consistently worthwhile.

In Howl, Franco confronts not only Ginsberg’s artistic process and his quirky wisdom — which would be enough for most actors, in most movies — but also the poet’s complex emotional life. Even as Franco’s Ginsberg is falling in love with straight guys, his eyes are yearning, lonely; he stands apart, sometimes connecting only through a camera that keeps him at an extra remove from others. Physically, the character really comes alive only during the scenes of that public reading. Grooving on his genius and the responses of his listeners (who include a couple of the men he loves), made beautiful and desirable by words, he’s practically dancing to the music he makes.

I’ve been there myself. And that, for this reader, is what “Howl” is about.

Most of the language of the poem is commonplace now, and most of the activities it describes are legal. We live in better times; it’s easy to look back and smirk, if not laugh outright, at those who found the poem shocking, half a century ago, and who would have suppressed it. Yet “Howl” is by design subversive, as it always is to call things by their right names. If it doesn’t shock us now, at least a little, if it doesn’t reveal something we haven’t seen already, then it isn’t doing its job.

I’m glad I read the poem, glad the film made me do so at last, and glad I saw the film. I’m only sorry that I left the theater so depressed. At the very moment Ginsberg cruised me, I should have been liberating myself — albeit not necessarily with Ginsberg, in the way he had in mind. The artistic lesson of Howl is, then, not so very different from that of The Pee-Wee Herman Show, though the effects are entirely different.



*NOTE: You can’t seriously think that, in my suburban Texan high school, we were taught “Howl,” and I’d be willing to bet that no copy existed in our public library, either. By the time I got to college, we were expected to know “Howl” already, and I pretended to, in that way that I had.

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Interview: Renée O’Connor

Again and again over the course of a long weekend in Paris, Renée O’Connor heard the love: “I’ve been waiting 14 years for this moment!” “You’re my favorite actress!” “You changed my life!” Although the fan convention here (which also drew fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and one of that show’s stars, Nicholas Brandon) was billed as “The Musical,” she was surprised and delighted by two fully choreographed musical numbers, in which her audience became the performers. (These kids are going to tumble for Glee, whenever it arrives on European TV.)

For the native Texan, still best-known for her role as Gabrielle on the syndicated television series Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001), it was clearly an emotionally gratifying time — in which she was invited into the community that her show created, and in which the fans strove to give back to her something of what they’d received. This was also my introduction to the true nature of the phenomenon that is Xena fandom. (And yes, by weekend’s close, the kids did dress up as their favorite characters, though I missed the costume competition.)

A proud alumna of Houston’s Alley Theatre children’s program and High School for the Performing Arts, Renée now lives primarily in the Los Angeles area, while maintaining a home in New Zealand, where Xena was filmed; she’s the mother of two young children. In addition to her talents as an actress, she’s building a career as a director: her first feature, a romantic comedy entitled Diamonds and Guns, was released in 2008. She paints and writes screenplays — and poetry, too — and with the help of our mutual friend, Michelle Grant, she conducts seminars in Awareness, with a view to leading more creative, open, spiritual lives. (Renée’s next such seminar will be in Toronto, 11 and 12 September.)

Spending time with Renée, I discovered a compassionate, thoughtful woman with a great deal to express, and abundant means to express herself. Our conversations with Michelle, over a couple of dinners and a long walk through Paris, covered a wide range of topics — of which the interview that follows touches on only a few. Suffice to say that I’m a fan now, too, in hearty agreement with those who say, “ROC rocks!”

Renée O’Connor with the organizers of the French fan convention.
Her T-shirt says, “Paris, j’adore.”
Photo by Michelle Grant© Used with permission.

WVM: As I wrote on my blog today, to a true Xena fan, I’m probably the nightmare, because I’ve never seen the show. Now I’m intrigued, and I want to catch up on the series. So tell me: who is Gabrielle? What should I look out for as I watch?

ROC: In the beginning, she is very naïve, with an intense desire to search for who she is. Then she starts to be the counterbalance to Xena’s pragmatic warrior, so she becomes more of the peaceful, compassionate, loving partner to Xena’s person-seeking-redemption. Xena the Warrior Princess is looking for redemption, and Gabrielle is guiding her there in some profound way. I think that if you thought of the whole arc of the series, that’s what you could say. Xena discovers true love in Gabrielle. What else should you look for? In the beginning, she’s one of those people who can get herself out of any situation through fast talking. By the end of the series, she actually gets herself out of situations by using her own physical strength, fighting alongside Xena.

WVM: She’s also a bard. What does that mean, in Xena terms?

ROC: Gabrielle is a great storyteller. She loves to meet the poets along the way. Even at the end of the series — she admires Sappho’s poetry, and so Xena gives her this gift, a poem to her from Sappho. Gabrielle is the person who writes down and archives the adventures of Xena all along the way. Then she puts them in these scrolls, which are her prized possessions, and she carries them on all their journeys. So one great piece of humor is when Xena discovers that she can’t find any paper in the forest, so she uses one of the scrolls, rips off a piece of one.

WVM: That kind of paper? Toilet paper?

ROC: Yes! There was a wonderful lightness in the series. There were feminist themes, anti-war themes. But also humor. I still remember that scene: “Scrolls? You used my scrolls?”

It’s still the ultimate buddy movie, too. [Gabrielle and Xena] could always rely on each other. We always loved each other, too, so whenever a tragic flaw came over one of us, we always came through to the other side still loving each other.

WVM: But it’s my understanding that they were never depicted as lovers outright.

ROC: That was asked today. Someone said, “Do you think they ever basically made love,” is what the question was. That’s been the question of subtext for all these years. There was an incredible intimacy between Xena and Gabrielle. I don’t know if I said, “Yes” or “Probably.” If so, Lucy [Lawless, who played Xena] and I never defined that in playing the characters.

It’s a relationship I don’t think I’ve ever had: it’s best friends, it’s maternal, it’s combative — such as in warfare when you have to rely on your partner to think quickly.

WVM: There’s also an element of big sister/ little sister, isn’t there?

ROC: Yeah, and yet I felt Xena was quite maternal, too. Xena defended Gabrielle. I don’t know if she sacrificed herself. It’s more than just a sexual intimacy. But that’s what people saw, so that’s what they could resonate with the most.

WVM: We don’t often get to see women’s friendship treated in this kind of depth. Usually the depictions are pretty superficial, or they don’t take up much screen time. And men — myself included — are always certain that there’s more going on and much more said between women when we’re not in the room.

ROC: Interesting. That’s the mind of a man!

Renée recalled a scene between Xena and Gabrielle that demonstrated the characters’ closeness.

ROC: We were around the campfire talking about a recap of what happened in the episode, some sort of change in the character had happened, and it was an intimate, vulnerable moment, and it happened around the campfire. I think there’s a moment of intimacy when people are vulnerable and open and loving, and I guess that’s where the “dot dot dot” comes in.

It’s funny you say that [about women’s friendships], because I think women are probably more threatened [than men] by seeing someone they love in an intimate relationship with someone else. Women feel that way. As opposed to something that looks — something that might just be a lustful projection. Isn’t that true?

WVM: I think guys tend to congratulate each other, rather than feel threatened. Maybe they’re hurt when feeling left out, like “I can’t hang out with my buddy because he’s out with his girflriend.”

While Renée reflected on this, I observed that, at the convention, it was clear that a number of the women present at the convention considered Xena and Gabrielle as models for their own loving relationships with other women. Renée cautioned that her perspective shouldn’t be taken as authoritative, merely because she played one of the characters, but she does understand the interpretation.

ROC: I have to embrace that, because truly the lesbian community is still our most loyal following, definitely, after all these years. So if that’s what they want to see, absolutely, go for it, sure.

WVM: Is it flattering to be viewed this way by a community, that you’re telling their stories?

ROC: You know, I come at it from the other angle. I’m almost worried — and I’m not a worrisome person — but I worry about misrepresenting the community, because I don’t expect to be iconic. I can’t represent them in a way that is truly truthful, and so I don’t know that I should be the spokesperson. [That is to say, because she’s a straight woman in real life.]

I think people resonate with me personally because of the person I am. I care about the fans, I really do. I want them to be happy. I want them to feel like they can stand up and say, “I’m gay,” and be fulfilled in so many ways and never be discriminated against. That’s what’s important in what they see in me. I don’t want them to feel isolated or feel like they have to hide or feel ashamed. And I think the young girls feel that way because they don’t have anyone to talk to and they don’t know what to do. I have felt that in my life, and so I feel like I want to say to them, “You don’t have to do that, you can stand up and be who you are.”

Michelle Grant, WVM, and Renée O’Connor

WVM: A lot of people identify very closely with Gabrielle’s spiritual journey.

ROC: I don’t know that she meant it to be a spiritual journey. I think she was trying to search for her individual way. There was an element to the spiritual quest there, but I don’t think it was isolated around spirituality. You know, there are just some people who feel incongruent, they have different aspects and they don’t line up. They feel conflicted. [Gabrielle] was in love with someone who was a warrior and was killing people, and yet Gabrielle wanted the life of a compassionate pacifist. So how does she do that? That was how I came at it.

WVM: I should probably use the word “meaning” rather than “spirituality.”

ROC: Yes, yes, looking for meaning, sure.

WVM: The audience really seems open to Gabrielle and her experience, but also open to you. In turn, you’ve been able to share with them some of the wisdom that you’ve picked up along the way, and several of the people at the convention had attended your Awareness seminar in London.

ROC: What was important for me was for people to really see who I am, the person beyond playing a character on television, and to benefit from the gifts that I’ve been given, and learned from my last five years of studying one road toward self-awareness. I think that the great gift of the Awareness seminars is that I’m able to pass something on to them and facilitate these teachings that they can use in their own lives, and they can then move on. Awareness is about asking inductive questions, and we get to find out about their own experiences. What love feels like, what joy feels like, or asking inductive questions to get their answers to what the ego feels like, what patterns — like behavioral patterns — might look like for them. When I’m facilitating the seminar, I’m not teaching as much as I’m asking for their own awareness to speak up and teach themselves.

Traveling in new directions

WVM: And it’s something you can do in a number of places.

ROC: I will be traveling around the world, teaching an introduction to Awareness. It’s based on one book, the book is called The Ring around the Mind, by Mary Rocamora. For instance, “the ring around the mind” is literally the idea of the ego that we keep in our mind, such as a running commentary that takes us through the day, our personal critic, the judge, the ring that keeps us feeling separate from the rest of humanity on a large scale, keeps us separate from our own higher self.

WVM: What do you do when you identify it?

ROC: The next step is to try to lose the ego altogether and move to a place that is much more free, which I believe personally is the self that was intended all along, the reason we were born. Whatever that may look like, the people who are in your life for that reason, [who] match that. So the seminars, yes I have taught one in London and one in New Jersey, I’m about to teach one in Toronto. Michelle [Grant] and I will be taking the seminar to different places, I don’t know where yet. My idea is to take it somewhere and introduce the concept of it — which is ironic, because the whole seminar is about getting away from concepts and experiencing what’s real. But I want to introduce them to Awareness, and then, if people want to continue to study, they can go to Mary Rocamora.

She never solicited me on any of this. It’s just that my life changed so much that when people ask why I seem different, I want to be able to tell them why, and maybe they’ll find it useful, as well. I think there are many, many roads to people’s finding their own peace and enlightenment, and this just happens to work for me.

WVM: You’re taking your career down a different road, too. Why directing?

ROC: I don’t think it’s so much a “why” as — because I’ve been directing since I was a kid. I’ve been playing with a camera and directing my friends in plays and scenes since I was in grade school. During Xena, I was always curious about the bigger picture, where the characters were going, if the story arc made sense, if the beats in the scene were true and then had a shift at the end and carried on to the next scene. I was always fascinated by these elements, so it was a natural segue to directing. I feel I have more creative control, the opportunity to play in all the different departments. After six years of working on Xena, I understand camera angles and shots, and how to make things look dynamic. I appreciate compositions to the shots.

The poster for Words Unspoken, a recent film by Renée.
For more information on all of Renée’s directing projects,
consult her production company’s website:
rocpictures.com

I happen to love working with actors, I appreciate their techniques, and I value their effort. And then I’m able to raise their bar and push them a little bit further, if necessary, to try to stretch them, to see if they can learn something as well. When I say, “learn something,” I mean maybe an inner wisdom that pops because of the experience or maybe a technical issue. You know, that doesn’t always happen, and you have to know when people aren’t willing to do anything and [they] just show up and work for a paycheck and go home. That’s okay, but I prefer to work with people that have a higher interest in being there, if possible.

WVM: Where are your next opportunities to direct going to be?

ROC: I actually don’t know yet. I’m looking for financed independent films to direct. A lot of people come to me with ideas and stories, but then they want financing. I am looking for financed projects to direct.

Photo by Michelle Grant© Used with permission.

During the convention, Renée had talked about the impact that playing Gabrielle had on her personally: first in giving her confidence, and then, after the series ended, launching her on her own spiritual journey. (Which, as opposed to Gabrielle’s journey, Renée does describe as spiritual.) I suggested that, through her directing experiences, and in one case by getting involved (successfully) with financing a picture, she was mirroring the Gabrielle experience, and gaining confidence.

ROC: Yes, I learned the confidence during the two episodes that I directed on Xena. I felt very confident as a director — maybe naïvely — but now every time that I’m not directing but I’m acting for myself, I see that I have more knowledge than I expect of myself. I think it’s just there, and it comes from absorbing the knowledge from the talented directors that were around me for all those years. I have always been inquisitive, I’m sure you could ask any of those directors, and the ones that I respected, I was always right by their side, asking questions. Fortunately, they were always very forthcoming with sharing — sharing with me and not getting too frustrated!

The problem with this business is, if you have not directed a feature film, it’s difficult to get a large budget behind you and get sent off for your first feature film. That’s been a struggle, and yet I don’t think it’s a dead end. It’s just a detour.

WVM: I’ve already heard from readers who are Xena fans, but there are probably going to be people reading this who know as little as I do. What do you want people to know? How do you want to say goodbye to us tonight?

ROC: I am always fascinated at how we are all connected, and how similar we all are. What about the people who follow Gabrielle are similar to the people who follow your opera? Do they both feel extremely passionate about the feelings they get from watching Xena or being in the opera? Why are we so similar? If music or a television show can makes us open in our lives, how can we take that feeling and translate it into our daily lives? That would be my parting words, is to put it back to them. How interesting, to cross the gap.

I would think that someone who would prefer to sit in an opera probably wouldn’t be picking up a Xena DVD. I don’t know. So if not, then can he or she listen to how passionate someone feels about a TV character and respect that that’s that person’s model of their world, and yet their feelings are exactly the same as [those of] the person who sat and listened to the resonating finale of an opera star. But gosh, operas are just so powerful! And yet some people today were telling me how much Gabrielle changed their lives. I’m not suggesting they [opera and Xena] are the same, but they’re more similar than we realize.

NOTE: After the more-or-less formal conclusion of our interview, I observed that the final scenes of Xena are borderline Wagnerian, with a heroic death and transfiguration, as the lone surviving lover sails off into the unknown. Renée replied that Robert Tapert, the show’s creator (and Lucy Lawless’ husband) is an opera fan who often incorporated operatic themes into the show’s scripts — and who encouraged Renée to attend the opera, too. If she can cross over, can the rest of us do any less?

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