Author: Jane

HERE’S TO YOU MRS ROBINSON

Jane 17 Comments

So here is what I dreamed last night: I invited Mrs Robinson, Michele Obama’s mother, and her granddaughters, Sasha and Malia Obama, to White Castle where I introduced them all to the tasty mini burgers. The girls loved them. I was very solicitous of them because we were in a small resort on an island made of sand which risked sinking (pretty obvious metaphor there!!) The girls were en route to school with their grandmother and I found their backpacks unbelievably heavy with books. I said to myself, “these private schools ought to get hip to the danger of their young students sinking under such unresonable weight.” So that was last night. Today I went. To the Hospital of Special Surgery for a. Cortisone shot cause I tore my Labrum (like Arod!) Using the walker the wrong way in my play (“33 variations.”) –totally my fault. I feel like a new person today but last night I used a cane, even for curtain call. Wonder if people just thought I am an over-the-board Method actress!! All’s well that ends well. Oh yes, the interview I did with Elizabeth Lesser on Oprah’s radio show will air Monday March 30th at 1pm and will be re-aired that same day at 7pm. See you next time. I want to talk about how things about the play come to me in my dreams.

JAMES EARL JONES

Jane 7 Comments

James Earl Jones saw the show tonight with his wife and they came backstage after. I had not seen them since 1994 in Moscow where we were for the CNN/TBS (Ted Turner’s vision) Goodwill Games. He looks teriffic as does his wife. They loved the show and were full of bravos for Zach Grenier who plays Beethoven. Also backstage came the beautiful red head twins, Kimberly (my Pilates teacher) and Katherine with their husbands. They are the nicest women. If everyone in the world had their moral fiber we’d be in good shape.

CECILE RICHARDS

Jane 17 Comments

Last night Cecile Richards and her daughter Lily came to see the show. Cecile is the daughter of former Texas Governor, the amazing, indominable Ann Richards who died of cancer two years ago. Cecile and Lily were deeply moved by all aspects of the play but particularly the mother/daughter relationship. I just received a very moving email from Cecile talking about her mother’s attitude toward death which were similar to my character’s in the play. Cecile is the president of Planned Parenthood of America which is the primary health care provider to millions of women nationwide. Over dinner at Joe Allen’s, she told about the recent meeting on health care reform with President Obama at the White House; how very different the environment is now; how important it was that Planned Parenthood was invited in its capacity as a health care provider; how thrilling it is to have former Kansas governor, Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services; how the president was able to really listen and process what people said. We both hope that this administration will address adolescent health in particular, especially adolescent reproductive health. For example, African American girls are experiencing a real epidemic of HIV/AIDS. In my state of Georgia among adolescent girls in general there is an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases such as Chlamydia. We have to stop our long-standing ostrich behavior, get our heads out of the sand, stop looking at reproductive health care from a moral perspective and view it, instead, as a public health issue as is done in other parts of the industrialized world. I got to know Cecile when she and I traveled the country together in 1998-9 talking about the potential treat to Roe v. Wade as well as comprehensive sexuality education and other aspects of reproductive health if George W. Bush was elected. Our concerns were well founded as the subsequent 8 years have shown. New rates of rising teen pregancy rates as well as STD increases can partly be blamed on the previous administration’s policies. Looks like that is on the way to changing. Fingers crossed. No!! Too passive!! Voices raised!!! See you next time.

A DOORWAY TO INFINITY

Jane 8 Comments

I met Mark Bly on the first day of rehearsal back in January. Moises introduced him as a dramaturg. I didn’t know what that meant and have since discovered that in the US, a dramaturg is a relatively recent role found most particularly in theater companies that focus on developing new plays and those that produce plays where the socio-historical background is important to the understanding of the production as is the case with “33 Variations”. Mark is, in fact, senior dramaturg and director of new-play development for Houston’s Alley Theatre, and has been involved with the development of “33 Variations” since at least 2005, through various iterations at workshops from Sundance, to the Arena Theatre in Washington, DC and places in between. Last week he came back to see the play again and brought me a copy of “American Theatre” magazine which contains an article by him about the emergence of the play from Moises’s initial obsession with the subject until now. It’s an interesting look at how a layered, partly historical drama comes into being. In the article, Bly cites Russian novelist Andrey Bely with a quote that speaks to what my character, musicologist Dr Katherine Brandt, comes finally to believe Beethoven  is saying with his 33 Variations: “An instant of life taken by itself as it is deeply probed becomes a doorway to infinity. The minutiae of life will appear even more clearly to be the guides to eternity.” Bly goes on to say, “Kaufman’s play evokes a world where the membrane between the past and present is permeable. And beer and soup stains live beside grace notes, nudging each other for prominence.” Aren’t I lucky to be in such a piece! See you next time.

SOUL

Jane 28 Comments

I was interviewed today by my friend, Elizabeth Lesser for Oprah’s radio show about Soul. Oprah has asked Elizabeth to host the show when she, Oprah, is not available. Elizabeth is co-founder of The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY and is a deeply spiritual/soulful person. We spent a wonderful hour talking together during which I realized that I want to send Elizabeth’s book, “Broken Open,” to Vanessa Redgrave. It is a book about how life’s tragedies and crisis can also be the way in which we are broken open–to deeper, richer parts of ourselves, to the broader community, to the universe. I also remembered with shock that only last year Vanessa played Joan Didion in the one-woman play based on Didion’s book, “The Year of Magical Thinking,” which told of her loss of her husband, John Dunne and her daughter. I feel certain that Didion will be able to help Vanessa now through her own loss. Perhaps the acuteness of the tragedy of Natasha’s death is magnified for me because of I feel very ‘broken open’ by the nature of this play that I am doing 8 times a week–a play that speaks of life and death, of mothers and daughters. (These last days it has been hard for me to write my usual ‘sign off’–see you next time. It all seems so arbitrary.)

Tweets on 2009-03-20

Jane No Comments

At 8pm, the lights on Bway will be dimmed in honor of Natasha and to mark her passing. I am grateful for this beautiful Broadway tradition. #

Tweets on 2009-03-19

Jane No Comments

My heart is heavy tonight for Natasha http://is.gd/nXc1 #theatre #actor #

UTTER SADNESS BECAUSE NATASHA RICHARDSON HAS DIED

Jane 133 Comments

I first met her on the set of “Julia.” She was a little girl but already beautiful and graceful. It didn’t surprise me that she became such a talented actor. I wanted to go to the Lennox Hill Hospital where I was told she had been taken to see if there was anything I could do for Vanessa, any comfort I could bring but today was a two-show day and as the curtain went up tonight I heard the tragic news. It is hard to even imagine what it must be like for her family. My heart is heavy.