Ye Tragedie of Ye Clambering Kittie

by Mary

Speaking of Macbeth, on being informed Birnam Wood was on the move he must have been horrified, recalling the prophecy he would not be vanquished until said wood arrived on his doorstep. We have some small idea of how he felt when he looked out on advancing greenery, though in our case as related in the August issue we've been dealing with the fall-out from a single downwardly mobile tree but thankfully without having to worry about a single man-at-arms as well.

So, picking up the saga at the point where we left it, an electrician and his apprentice arrived at the start of this month to attend to the remaining repair, i.e. replacing the electricity line running between the point where it reaches the house to where it enters the meter.

They soon discovered what we long since realised: when repairs are needed, there is almost certain to be difficulties carrying them out given how often in the course of the work bits and bobs will be encountered whose threads, size, location, or shape means getting them removed is not going to be easy. It's not surprising considering the age of the house but while new parts will fit, getting the old ones off takes more time than expected, involving a process resembling hand to hand combat. Further, on occasion it's been necessary for more than one craftsperson to take a trip back to base to check the company's collection of less modern tools or older parts in stock in order to complete the job. One example from a couple of months ago: an appropriate length of L-shaped siding needed to embrace a corner was located at the company after the newer piece brought to the job was too wide to fit the angle where the two walls met, underlining that useful advice to keep any usable or surplus nails, screws, fiddly widgets, etc, just in case. Most people have a collection of such kickshaws. Our accumulation includes the external encrustations from the recently-replaced pressure tank for our well and an ancient pair of coke-bottle spectacles. Laugh about those gig-lamps ye may, but what if one rainy Sunday afternoon we are suddenly seized with the idea of attempting to build a microscope or telescope? Well, then.

To make matters worse, in the course of their two-hour visit the gaffer described some of the original work here as having been done "old style" -- for example a plank the tree ripped off the house was held in place by headless nails. Thus, for one task he needed an old style tool. As it happened. they carry just such a gizmo around in their van so this cannot be the first house presenting such problems. The implement, which we think was a crimper and if so was used to connect the two lines at the point they meet by mangling them together. Though there've been two electricians in the immediate family I have not the technical knowledge to describe how that would work without destroying them. alas. But the tool was extremely heavy, ran on batteries, and due to the amount of work done with it had to be recharged twice.

The electrician had been wielding it while perched on a ten foot ladder, but as the job progressed he had to go higher so switched to a twelve footer. While he seemed unconcerned about the nose-bleeding height, he experienced some difficulty inasmuch as being right-handed he could not deal with the left hand part of the fitting on which he was working. Moving the ladder left -- there was just enough space to anchor it safely -- he was able to continue working right-handedly on the left side of the job. And just as well as if not it would have meant summoning a basket truck to assist. How he could even hold such a heavy tool (it looked as if it was made of iron) in one hand remains a matter of mystery and admiration.

Then a wee bit of drama unfolded.

A movement flickered in the corner of the eye. A glance over to the right and there it was! An enormous black spider had suddenly appeared on the siding next to the electrician. He immediately observed to his audience he does *not* like spiders. Without exaggeration, if you include the span of legs, these nasty arachnids are as wide as the palm of an adult's hand. A couple have been encountered inside the house, most recently a few weeks ago. Like previous intruders it met with a speedy end. Dealing with them at ground-level is awful enough but for the fellow perched twelve feet up it was much worse, since any movement to dislodge it would be dangerous for him. It appears something frightened the ghastly thing because to everyone's relief it paused its peregrinations for a few seconds and then scuttled off to skulk behind the weatherboard.

A few days later the work passed inspection, so all is well at Maywrite Towers once again and what turned into a three month saga is over. But at times glancing out and observing the ten foot or so high broken trunk still standing, glaring at us across next door's lawn, just for a few seconds it's, well, somewhat unnerving.

There is, however, a footnote to this story. We had replaced the line in question on the advice of the crew who came out to effect a temporary hookup the day after the storm. They told us that the insulation on the line to the meter showed some weathering.

Not long after this was accomplished we watched the 1946 noir classic The Postman Always Rings Twice. Lana Turner and John Garfield had almost been caught in an attempt to murder Lana's husband Nick, to be staged as a fatal accident in a locked bathroom. The plan was to leave the scene of the crime via its window, drop to the flat roof below, and then from there to the ground by means of a ladder already in place. The attempt was thwarted when a cat clambered up the ladder and, in the manner of its kind, became curious, its resulting electrocution causing a power outage and resulting loss of nerve so Nick was safe for a bit longer. A motorcycle policeman who arrived after the incident noticed poor kitty's corpse and asked what had happened. Garfield replied he'd noticed some insulation had worn off what he called the feed wire but he hadn't got around to fixing it.

At this point we turned to each other, exclaiming whoah! in unison because that was exactly the problem we had just dealt with. Yes, our lives are just like a noir mystery albeit without unfortunate felines.*

* See https://cinemacats.com/the-postman-always-rings-twice-1946/

Chairs, a Table, a Cauldron

by Eric

Shakespeare's Macbeth isn't out of place in this newsletter. While not a mystery it can certainly be classified as a crime story. There's a large enough body count. One Internet source tallies eight murders. But I don't want to write about the play itself. My subject is the performance I saw in 1974 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City.

The theater has about three hundred seats, the rows curving around a thrust stage more or less creating half of a theater in the round. The whole audience is practically on top of the action. For this production the stage was covered by various levels of metal gratings. Most of the actors carried swords and wore heavy boots and dark bulky outfits with numerous metal fittings. They clanked and rattled across the gratings looking huge in the dim lighting. The set was stark. Chairs, a table, a cauldron for the witches.

All impressive and spooky but when Macbeth strode onto the stage a remarkable thing happened.

What is stage presence? Good acting? Appearance? An attitude? A psychic projection? However it might arise, after seeing this performance of Macbeth I have no doubt it exists. The actor filled the theater with the enormous force of Macbeth's personality. You couldn't look away.

On my way out, feeling almost stunned, I asked one of the ushers "Who was that?"

"Christopher Walken," she replied, rather incredulously, apparently shocked that I didn't know him or maybe just surprised I had neglected to read my Playbill.

Walken was already well known to New York theatergoers but had appeared in only a few movies. Stardom and the Academy Award for The Deer Hunter came later. Over the years he seems to have been relegated mainly to playing villains which strikes me as a terrible waste of talent. Maybe the magnetism I felt during his Macbeth can't be captured by film. I was thrilled to see the Avengers' Patrick McNee in Sleuth at a tiny, regional theater, but though I loved his television performance as Steed and his portrayal of mystery writer Andrew Wyke on stage was excellent, I can't honestly say he had great stage presence, at least for me.

I haven't seen many famous actors on stage. I thought Frank Langella as Dracula had less presence than Edward Gorey's stage settings. Strangely enough, Carol Channing in a frothy show designed for her had whatever it is and then some. And I never even liked her. Chatting with talk show hosts she struck me as too gushing and phony. Yet seeing her in person I absolutely believed in her sincerity. It felt like she created some sort of psychic bond with every person in the audience. Jason Robards -- I don't know. Can stage presence reach the nosebleed seats where you need binoculars to recognize the actors?

For what it's worth I saw Blondie close up on the CBGB bar/rock club's poor excuse for a stage. Debbie Harry basically jumped up and down in a little pink dress and much as I love Blondie's music she didn't rivet my attention. To be fair I was sitting practically next to the sound man (CBGBs in cramped to put it mildly) who fiddled in apparent desperation with switches and dials and buttons muttering things like "Twenty-five thousand dollars worth of sound equipment and a twenty-five cent voice." Which I think totally inaccurate after listening to Debbie Harry's recordings many times over the years.

However, I can say for certain that lesser known singer and actress Quinn Lemley has presence in abundance. When Mary and I saw her one-woman show about Rita Haworth in a tiny dinner theater, she walked over to the edge of the stage in her slinky dress, a couple feet from where we sat, and sang The Heat Is On directly to me. So....

While trying to get my facts straight (if only I could google my memory) I managed to find a listing for the Macbeth performance I saw. As my gaze passed over the cast list I suddenly stopped. Banquo was played by Christopher Lloyd -- Reverend Jim in Taxi and Doc Brown in Back to the Future. Well, how do you like that, I thought.

But wait. Peter Weller portrayed Lennox. The name sounded familiar. Let's see...he was Robocop! And there was another name I recognized -- Carol Kane who was also in Taxi and plenty of movies. Heck, she was only one of the witches! Who would have guessed she'd go on to marry Latka?

I looked up the rest of the cast. Practically every one had long careers and a Wikipedia entry. Without knowing it I'd seen Stephen Collins (Macduff) in Star Trek: The Motion picture, John Heard (Donalbain) and Jason Tolkan (Rosse) in the Home Alone films. Some of the actors I might have glimpsed in shows I watched, like Hill Street Blues. Others were in shows I've heard about: The Sopranos, Dark Shadows, the Doctors, and more.

Realistically it's pretty likely you'll see a lot of actors who are successful or headed for success in a New York City production so my experience was not, I am sure, very unusual. Still, it amazed me that I had seen unknowingly so many actors I'd watch in the future all on the same stage that long ago afternoon. Remarkable isn't it how the Internet can alter and even enhance our own memories? Or perhaps that's scary.