Harvest of Empire

Directed by Peter Getzels & Eduardo López

 

This is an informative, well-presented story of the Latino migration to the United States throughout the twentieth century and continuing into the present. It makes clear the relationship between the Latin migration to the United States and the economic and political policies of the United States government, examining numerous specific cases in great detail: Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Each case is somewhat different, but the basic pattern is consistent: the United States destabilizes popular governments, engineers coups, promotes civil wars, and supports repressive dictatorial regimes that promote the economic interests of large U.S. corporations who exploit the citizenry of these countries, extract their resources, pervert the local economy, and corrupt the government and the judicial system. The citizenry then flee poverty, repression, war, hopelessness, and despair, and where do they come? The United States. People do not leave their homes, their cultures, their languages, and their national identity easily. They do so reluctantly and often at great risk. In a great many cases they are not coming to seek work or to make money, but to flee terror and genocide. The United States trains, arms, and supports the repressive governments that brutalize the civilian population and create the intolerable conditions that promote large scale migration. This film documents this pattern with many vivid examples. It is based on the book Harvest of Empire, by Juan Gonzalez, who is featured as a commentator throughout the film. Anyone who is Latino should see it. Anyone who isn’t Latino should also see it, because it might help to discredit some of the paranoid nonsense being promoted in politics and the media — which is also portrayed in the film — about securing the borders with fences and drones and armed patrols and criminalizing undocumented immigrants and deporting them by the thousands and millions, which is not feasible and not in our interest in any case. It is a powerful and important story that will have lasting implications for the future of our nation. There are about 51 million Latin immigrants in the United States right now, with about two thirds of them from Mexico. According to the Pew Research Center, by 2050 the Latino population in the United States will triple in size and make up 29% of the population compared to 14% in 2005. Nearly one in five Americans will be an immigrant in 2050, compared to one in eight in 2005. It is a major long term demographic and cultural shift underway in the United States: an inadvertent, unforeseen consequence of short-sighted, misguided economic and political policies carried out by our government over many years. This film provides a clearheaded, historically informed, constructive look at the issue that is interesting and rich in examples of the many varied impacts it has on individual human lives.

HAIR

Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle

The Encinal Drama Department courageously explores the radical sixties via the American Tribal Lock-Rock Musical HAIR.

The musical visits the incubator of many cultural and political elements that we take for granted today: the anti-war and anti-draft movement, environmental protection, women’s rights, mysticism, broad based humanism, sexual liberation, tolerance and cultural pluralism.

These features of the American landscape were brought to you by the Hippies; a utopian subculture that looked beyond materialism for a vision of what we could become.

Diane Keaton was part of the 1968 Broadway cast of HAIR; strangely, to this day she reminds us that although she played a Hippy on stage, she was not a Hippy.

Remarkably, the Encinal production seems to capture the very essence of the Hippy movement; to the credit of Director Robert Moorhead, the show—despite the enormous cast—achieves an intimate cohesive feel, a harmonic convergence of creative spirit and enlightened hope; the unifying tribal force is palpable.

The rousing opening song, Aquarius, boldly led by Brazjea Willard-Johnson with an exuberant Tribal chorus, asserts that planet Earth is governed by a celestial clock—the precession of the equinoxes—and humanity is getting its wake-up call; peace, love and understanding are about to usurp the old evil gods of greed, war and hate.

Just as the Christian era is believed to have been ushered in by a Virgin, the Aquarian Age too has its Madonna only in HAIR it is simply Donna and Berger—played marvelously by Darryl Williams—is desperately singing and searching for “my Donna.”

While drugs have been a part of the American experience since the Jamestown Colonists discovered the hallucinogenic properties of Jimson Weed, it was the sixties that brought on a proliferation of every “mind expanding” toxicant known to the recreational pharmacist and sorcerer; the song Hashish, performed by the Tribe in an eerie and trippy haunting howl, signals the audience that mystic revelation can spring from psychedelics much easier and quicker than yoga, asceticism and rigorous self-denial.

While the United States was busily bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail and trumped-up body counts filled the evening news, the nation remained priggish about S E X; the song Sodomy drags words before the Klieg Lights that were hitherto only uttered in locker rooms, pajama parties, frat houses and confession booths; words like … like … well you know.

Woof—superbly played by the unassuming leading man of Encinal Theater, and Encinal’s West Point selectee, Raymond Cole-Machuca—lyrically runs through the entire Scortatory Dictionary trying to find the basis of its shock value.

Whether intentional or not, Raymond’s Woof is the oak tree about which the Tribe seems to hang its Teepee; he is both the Oberon and Puck of this musical.

Relentlessly threaded through the musical, submerging and reemerging repeatedly, is the problem of the Draft: compulsory military service; most likely in Vietnam.

The lead character, Claude, is inexorably ratcheted closer and closer to boot camp and the nightmare that lies beyond.

Claude—as played by Ryan Borashan is brilliant casting.

Ryan is an amazing young gentleman actor not to be under-estimated; he is so capable and expansive on stage that his own teachers have difficulty recognizing him.

Claude does his best to dismiss reality; he dives into a false identity in the song Manchester England as if to momentarily escape the Selective Service who has issued him a draft card.

Ryan’s rendering of the song betrays the desperation of a draft eligible teenager trying to suspend his sense of disbelief to buy one more day in protracted adolescence; neither his parents nor the Tribe fully comprehend the enormity of his crisis.

Later as reality begins to infiltrate Claude’s denial mechanism, Ryan wonderfully sings what is arguably the finest song of the show: Where Do I Go.

One of the most startling voices in HAIR is Kalyn Evans; when she chimes into the number Ain’t Got No, the song leaps a full octave qualitatively; this reviewer spent the rest of the evening anxiously waiting for an encore from Kalyn.

As previously stated, the environment was moved to the front burner by the Hippy Movement and the environmentalist in HAIR is the amply Pregnant Jeanie—played by very talented Miss Ruby Wagner.

Miss Wagner—one of the bright beacons in this show—perhaps acceding that there were vagaries in the sound system, not only sang mellifluously, but she communicated her song, Air, to the audience with expression, articulation and earnestness while never compromising on melody.

In a subjective debate over the virtues of Black Boys versus White Boys and in a nod to Motown and Phil Spector, Emani Pollard, Kalyn Evans and Jayla Velasquez delightfully shimmied in shimmering minis.

Costuming and make-up deserve major kudos.

Initially one might think this is a parody of the sixties until one realizes that this is how it really was, equally audacious and outrageous in the sixties as it is on the Encinal Stage.

To connect or reconnect to a time when expectation and hope trumped the status quo and the military-industrial complex, get thee to HAIR.

The show runs through Saturday March 23 and should not be missed.

Period dressing is encouraged.

Call Encinal High at 748-4023 for more details.

Written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, from the novel by Kami Garcia, starring Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, and Viola Davis.

 

A MODERN FAIRY TALE

After reviewing “The Gatekeepers” for this web site, I wanted to see some fantasy, something light, so I checked out “Beautiful Creatures.”    Another reason is that one reviewer said that Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson make a meal of the scenery.  I love both and enjoy them in anything, and listening to Jeremy Irons’ voice with its oily, James Mason-smooth, rich delivery.   If anything, maybe this film will get teens to read.

It is a modern fairy tale in which the sought after young girl is not a princess but a witch who comes from a long line of witches and warlocks.   Except they’re not called “witches” but “casters” as in casting spells.  Not casters like wheels for moving furniture around.  “Creatures” stars two unknown (to me, anyway) actors, Alice Englert as Lena Duchannes, the caster, and her teen-age suitor, Ethan Wate played by Alden Ehrenreich, who has the endearing vocal inflections and mannerisms of a young Leonardo diCaprio.  Alice Englert is the daughter of filmmaker Jane Campion; Alden Ehrenreich is said to have been discovered by Stephen Spielberg at a friend’s barmitzvah.  If he’s never acted before, you wouldn’t know it by his portrayal of Ethan.  He’s a natural.

Ethan lives in a small, moss-covered town in North Carolina. He wants to get out, and sees college as a way.  His only escape is books- good ones- literature.  Real books- paper backs.  He reads Vonnegut, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Salinger, Bukowski, and more.  His mother is allegedly dead; his father non-compos-mentis with Alzheimer’s and never appears.  Ethan has been cared for since infancy by Amma, played by Viola Davis in a familiar role as a wise, spiritual, all-knowing woman, who lives in a spooky house in the swamps.  She is the town librarian, dresses in the latest African chic: prints, bangles, etc, and has a key to a hidden vault of secrets reminiscent of Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code.”  Part of the town’s history goes back to the Civil War and each year the townsfolk take part in a Civil War re-enactment of the Battle of Honey Hill.  There are flashbacks to that era shown in dreamy, surreal scenes in which a young woman a la Scarlett O’Hara, loses her young Confederate soldier to Union fire- but spookily brings him back to life.  (Could it be? . . .)

One of the things I loved about “Creatures” is that it shies away from stereotypes as much as possible in a fairy tale:  Lena, as a caster, is not a pale, anorexic, willowy girl who dresses in long, clinging, black dresses.  Though Ethan has been seeing her this way in recurring dreams, with long, black tendrils hiding her face.  In real life, Lena is the picture of rosy-cheeked health and dresses like a typical teen.   Anyway, seems she has been kicked out of every high school from here to Hades and ends up a senior at Ethan’s.  She’s the newby, and is taunted and bullied by her bland, blond classmates. (They suffer the consequences.)

Lena lives with her Uncle Macon Ravenswood (Jeremy Irons).  From the exterior, the house looks like the Munster mansion- all ropey vines, a squeaky, baroque, wrought-iron gate, a long, winding road o’er shadowed with cypresses festooned with Spanish Moss.  Ethan pays an uninvited visit hoping to talk to her.  He is the only one willing to befriend her, having, like I said, seen her in his dreams.  The heavily carved door is, of course, somehow ajar.  He pushes his way in.  We expect to see a dark room, dimly lit with wall sconces and candelabras; overstuffed, 17^th century furniture, including a mahogany dining table with scrolled legs, ending in dragon claws, clutching amber balls. But what a delightful surprise!  It is nothing you’d expect.  When Uncle Macon appears, he is elegant- suavely dressed in cream silks, his grey mane swept back in deep waves.  He speaks in well-modulated, orotund tones.

Naturally, there is a curse that has to be broken if Ethan is to get the girl before she goes over to the dark side when she turns 16 in a few weeks, epitomized by her cousin Sidney Duchannes (Emmy Rossum), who wears slinky, red dresses, shades, and speeds around in a sporty red convertible.  You know she’s evil when she causes a squad car to suddenly career off the road and burst into flames.  Another hint is that her eyes became supra-naturally luminescent immediately before she executes an evil deed.  The introduction of Sidney was, I thought, an unnecessary element, except she was a device to influence Ethan’s best friend and get Lena to come over to the dark side.  But the family relationships got confusing.  What with shape-shifting Emma Thomson as Mrs. Lincoln, the town radical fundamentalist Christian AND Serafine, Macon’s dark, caster of a sister, and Lena’s mother, as well as a bunch of other ageless relatives:  Gramma (Eileen Atkins), Aunt Del (Margo Martindale), a little-seen brother, etc.

One of the high-lights of the film takes place at a banquet at Macon’s.  Everyone’s been called together to convince the young lovers to break it off.  Ethan finds himself seated at the sumptuous table headed by Macon, with Lena and all the relatives.  Everything’s quiet.  In the background we hear the theme from the 1959 movie, “A Summer Place.”  Broke me up.  Then the room starts spinning around.  I expected everyone to end up as butter when it stopped.

Amma shows the pair the secret vault in the library where the history of the Duchannes and Ravenswood families are kept in leather-bound tomes that only Lena is privy to.  Spells are cast, Ethan loses his memory, Lena stays in her room and pouts.  It’s as though they’d never met.  Soon they all gear up for the re-enactment.  There’s some shape-shifting going on, someone is accidentally shot dead with a real bullet and is brought back to life in another body.  Serafina?  Next time you’re in the woods and see a tangle of thick vines choking a tree, think of her.  Yes, it did get a little hard to follow.  Ethan drives down the road, off to college.  Lena is in her room studying.  She looks up.  Her eyes reveal her new state of being.  The movie ends with nothing resolved, but you come away feeling that somehow, the young lovers will end up together.