regarding adoption

To the editor of New Horizons:

  As adoptive parents ourselves, my wife and I read the articles in the January 2013 (and in previous issues) New Horizons with some interest. One aspect of the Sallades' story struck us as they articulated a common concern amongst Christians who contemplate domestic or foreign adoption. Most Orthodox Presbyterian families are not wealthy, and although the federal government grants some tax rebates to adoptive parents, the financial expense of adoption can seem prohibitive. However, there is another option which is very nearly cost-free: adoption through social service agencies.

  My wife and I discovered this route through some "accidental" providential encounters, and our 4 year-old daughter was adopted this way. We have since met many fellow believers who also are, or have been, foster parents, and have come to realize that foster and adoptive care is a tremendous ministry opportunity. In my opinion, it is overlooked in our circles primarily because of ignorance, not indifference to the plight of the abandoned and abused children who live all around us, and so I write in hopes of making more Orthodox Presbyterians alert to it.

  Fostering and adopting children who have been neglected can pose many challenges, but as the Sallades' story referenced, these challenges arise in every adoption. With them, my wife and I thank our God we can place our daughter and other children under the care of their gentle and faithful Lord and Shepherd. I strongly suggest our members who have begun thinking about this area of service start asking around; we have found that most of us are only one or two degrees of separation away from other reformed foster parents.

  I have been extremely encouraged by the attention New Horizons has been paying to adoption, and to how it is becoming a much more common way of builidng families in Christian circles. I hope more of our members will contact their local social service agencies and look to provide covenant homes for the orphans all around us.

grace & peace,

 Matthew Kingsbury

Why Your Church Should Work with Social Services

That article title from the byFaith (the Presbyterian Church in America's denominational magazine) e-mail caught my attention not merely because Mrs. Curmudgeon and I have personally worked with social services in two counties as foster parents, but more because most conservative presbyterians write articles titled "Why You Should Run Screaming from Social Services." This account from a PCA congregation in Maryland offers a refreshing change of pace and notes that congregations can cooperate with the state, to some measure, without being co-opted by the state.

An open memo to medical professionals

Stop introducing sentences with "For men of your age, we recommend..."

Hamlet

No, I'm not going to complain about weaknesses in the script this time.

Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, receives its umpteen-millionth production at the Denver Center Theatre Company's Stage Theatre (through February 23). After I saw it two weeks ago, I thought I might be helped in sorting out my thoughts by viewing the 1990 film version of Tom Stoppard's existentialist deconstruction of the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

This may not have been my best idea.

At least that's what I thought at first. However, as he demonstrated in his masterful script for the wonderful Shakespeare in Love, Stoppard understands the Bard's creative mind about as well as any other thespian out there. For all its absurdity, Rosencrantz... can be read as an actor's attempt to make sense out of a rather challenging script. So much of Hamlet's plot is utterly mystifying. Why does Hamlet play mad? Its only obvious product is to drive Ophelia herself mad, and consequently to suicide, which product serves no purpose of Hamlet's and is rather apparently at odds with his professed love for her. Moreover, as Rosencrantz (or Guildenstern) asks, how is it that Claudius takes the throne after his brother's death when the prince and heir apparent is quite obviously of age to assume the crown? And those are just the beginning of the play's problems, the multitude of which in turn raises the question posed by Theatre Companion: why, exactly, does this play sit at the center of the English-speaking theatrical tradition and the Western canon itself?

Live theatre has the ability to resolve any number of apparent problems with a script simply because the spoken and performed word has an interpretive power not inherent in the printed word. During this performance, I was struck by the powerful and vivid description of depression Hamlet gives in the first act, and also by just how funny he is. Plot and extremely grim ending aside, Hamlet himself comes across as a fully realized human being, so much so that all the other characters become rather flat by comparison. Of course the ill-fated Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are little more than cardboard cut-outs, but the same could be said for Polonius, Gertrude, and Claudius. Only Ophelia in her madness competes with the prince for our sympathy and empathy.

Once again, kudos to the excellent staging. Judging from the costumes, this production is set sometime in the mid-1920s, but that time period seems hardly relevant to the action. Lightly rusted scaffolding at the back of the thrust stage serves as Castle Elsinore's exteriors and interiors, and the torso of a collapsed statue of King Hamlet to stage right, along with a wall of portraits in which the faces are all obscured, visually represent the metaphorical rottenness in the state of Denmark.

Nearly every production of Hamlet is edited for length, so the difficult bits may have been removed from this one. (It's been so long since I last saw this play that I stood no chance of noticing what may have been left out.) Nonetheless, I thought the plot, as a whole, flowed rather seamlessly and logically. Even the bit with the players staging the death of Gonzago made sense, even if it is largely a waste of time. (Seriously: the circumstantial evidence for regicide is so overwhelming that even the thin reed of a ghost's testimony can bear the weight of a damning case against Claudius.) In other words, were it up to me to avenge the death of Hamlet Sr., I would likely have chosen a different strategy, but I suppose I can more or less understand why Hamlet Jr. chose his.

Having said that, Fortinbras' closing speech praising Hamlet still strikes me as entirely unwarranted, but maybe I'm missing something in the prince's character obvious to everyone else. I just can't get over the fact that a good 95% of the deaths in this play are entirely unnecessary, and most are attributable to Hamlet's miscalculations. Not to be judgey or anything.

One last note, sincerely not meant to be as snarky as it will sound: while Aubrey Deeker handed in a robust and manly performance, his actual hairline came nowhere near meeting the expectations raised by this production's promotional materials.

All Is Lost

I stopped believing in the Academy Awards in 1990, when Do the Right Thing wasn't even nominated and Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture. Even on my most bitterly cynical, race-obsessed day, I couldn't make up something that absurd.

But I digress. Point is, I can't be bothered to get bothered that Robert Redford wasn't nominated for Best Actor for his work in All Is Lost. But who else do we have who could single-handedly maintain audience interest for an entire film? Obviously, director J.C. Chandor and cinematographer Frank DeMarco deserve much of the credit for an intensely riveting adventure movie. Nonetheless, it's Redford in all his aging movie star rugged glory who evokes, as much as cinematic vocabulary can, the Hemingway spirit. If you've not yet seen it, watch for the moment when he opens the box containing the sextant and considers the card inside. I would watch Robert Redford in anything. (And since I actually saw An Indecent Proposal, I've already proven I'm serious about that contention.)

Which may be why I'm so excited by Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Superman films will always disappoint, but the first Captain America movie was fairly satisfying. The move to take the good Captain in a dark direction now that he's in the 21st century promises to work well, especially since Mr. Redford is in the cast. Check out the first trailer (second trailer is not so moving): it will get you very, very worked up.

That is, if you have a soul.

black odyssey

Finally.

Regular visitors to this virtual space will know Theatre Companion and I have been sorely disappointed with the new plays mounted by the Denver Center Theatre Company this season. Our most frequent question following these productions has been "Why?" Why, of all the new plays being churned out by all those MFA-holding playwrights throughout this great land of ours, produce these mediocrities? Why, if these mediocrities are the best a producing artistic director can find, not revive one of the classics from the great American stage canon? Why subject a hopeful theatre-going public to works which make a strong argument against any public funding for the arts?

Why, oh why?

It was thus with some trepidation I escorted Mrs. Curmudgeon, who holds a master's degree in  the classics, to the world premiere of black odyssey (now through February 16 at the Space Theatre). In Marcus Gardley's new work,

Classic Greek characters and themes meet modern African-American culture in this twist on Homer’sThe Odyssey. Centered on a black soldier’s homecoming, this compelling new play fuses modern reality, humor, and song with ancient myth.

One can easily imagine how this might go badly wrong: the Odyssey's narrative stretched to the breaking point along with the audience's patience for overly wrought Negro spirituals. Instead, the playwright and cast nailed it. Gardley's Ulysses, as did Homer's, tries to make his way home after a war only to find himself manipulated by the gods ("Deus" for Zeus and "Paw Sidon" for Poseidon) and faced by traps at every turn. (An actual chess board hangs over the stage and is lowered for the gods' debates.) By making his Ulysses Lincoln an orphan, Gardley superimposes on the quest for home a simultaneous quest for identity and personal history, a history which is interwoven with the African-American experience in these United States. In this way, Gardley makes Ulysses Lincoln a black everyman as the staging of his journey becomes an appeal to the African-American community at large to hold on to and perpetuate its historical memory.

The cast is stellar, drawn from across the country: nearly every actor has a deep background on stage and screen, and all have marvelous singing voices. (This probably reflects the fact there just aren't that many all-black professional stage productions around the land.) The play does have weaknesses: the symbolism of the statue from the Lincoln Memorial, which came on stage in the second act, was entirely lost on me, and while Ulysses Lincoln served in the U.S. Navy, he was involved in land combat operations and consistently refers to himself as a "soldier." As Mrs. Curmudgeon pointed out, Nella Pee's vacillating loyalty to Ulysses toward the end of his odyssey was a disappointing departure from the steadfastness of Homer's Penelope. (However, this vacillation was motivated by a desire to provide a father figure to her son, Malachi; sadly, the struggles of single motherhood are a common theme in the modern African-American experience.) Also, Homer managed to work in a dog.

Nonetheless, this production delivers the goods. Here's a new play which tackles a big, big American subject through the frame of an ancient and universal narrative and makes the mystifying particulars of both Greek myth and African-American culture accessible and pellucid to a broad audience. It's a triumph: finally, a new play worthy of many more productions. I look forward to taking my black daughter to see one someday.

Psalm 73:28

But for me it is good to be near God;

I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,

that I may tell of all your works. (English Standard Version) 

Psalm 73 is the first psalm in Book III of the Psalter, and thus may reasonably be taken for this section's introduction. Psalms 73-83 are attributed to Asaph. In Psalm 73, Asaph's trust in God is restored when he remembers the eschatological judgment the wicked will suffer, along with the comfort which the Lord's companionship brings to his people in this life and the next. In this context, the psalm closes with Asaph's declaration he will "tell of all [God's] works" as a discipline to maintain a right understanding of God and the world.

The verb translated "tell" in the ESV and "declare" elsewhere is r#EÚpAsVl, which can be glossed as "count, recount, relate." It's not the most common verb for speaking or singing, and suggests Asaph's "tell[ing] of all [God's] works" will not merely be an act of personal devotion, but a public recounting of God's works in a public setting. (r#EÚpAsVl may even suggest writing.) In its broader canonical context, then, Psalm 73:28 introduces the remainder of the psalms of Asaph, which, through direct citation or allusion, are particularly concerned to relate the Lord's history with Israel.

Calvin on what to do about the internet (Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition, p. 996)

"But let us pass over these triflers, lest... we seem to judge their ravings worth refuting."

The Legend of Georgia McBride

In The Legend of Georgia McBride, receiving its world premiere from the Denver Center Theatre Company (now through February 23 at the Ricketson Theatre), a down-on-his-luck Elvis impersonator accidentally finds work as a lip-syncing drag queen with the stage name Georgia McBride, and in the process discovers his true artistic talent and a way to support his young bride and their growing family.

Yes, that smoke you smell is Western civilization going up in flames.

My readers in the queer community (of whom I am sure there are many) may be forgiven for thinking my low opinion of this show was, to coin a phrase, predestined by the fact I am a reactionary old-school presbyterian curmudgeon. However, my criticisms were only reinforced by those of my more alternate lifestyle-friendly Theatre Companion, and generally had to do with a weak script and awkward performances.

First, however, a note of praise for the DCTC's production department, which throughout this season has showcased each play with admirable staging choices. The Ricketson is a traditional proscenium-arch stage: for this show, set pieces were moved into the foreground of an otherwise bare stage with a full view of a mildly-cluttered backstage. Scene and costume changes, accordingly, took place in full view of the audience. (The open backstage design is, of course, something of a conceit; actors went off into the wings for changes into different characters.) This understated design suggests appearance and is extremely malleable and introduces identity as a theme in the play.

Unfortunately, the script fails to live up to the set design. The dialogue is often realistic and occasionally amusing, and the characters, by and large, believably human. None of what they go through, however, is sufficiently compelling to be put up on a stage. Casey, our young hero, discovers he's pretty good at lip-syncing while wearing a dress. While some may find this kind of act amusing, it's certainly not art, and so the play fails at its ambition to explore the nature of artistic striving and triumph.

The first scene of the second act features a faux Rosa Parks moment in which a gay drag queen chastises Casey for dressing up as a woman onstage while being straight in real life. This might have been an interesting development had the unusual dichotomy of a straight drag queen exploiting the queer community for personal gain and ambition been explored, but instead the theme was dropped immediately. In fact, the play eventually devolved into litte more than a stage version of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Fun for those looking for that sort of thing, but really: worthy of a professional production in the capital of the Rocky Mountain Empire?

The performances were extremely uneven. Matt McGrath, who proved remarkably good at tap-dancing in heels, struggled with his lines as drag queen Miss Tracy Mills (although he did much better as Casey's older brother Beau). A week into the production, and still not off book? I wondered if he was at fault when late in the second act Jamie Ann Romero flubbed some lines as well; perhaps the script was still being worked on. Not sure if that's better, at least from the audience's perspective: isn't that what previews are for?

Leaving the Denver Center for the Performing Arts complex, I noticed playbills for one of those "women-only" productions which present songs and skits designed specifically for the estrogen class. Were I a woman, I would be offended by such attempts to pander to my gender, treating me as a mere representative of a class and not a person with a unique experience and narrative. I think The Legend of Georgia McBride might be similarly offensive: a lazy effort at play-writing confident it will find ticket-buyers among a small minority thrilled simply to see drag queens on a real stage in a real theater.

Apparently, I need to coin a drag equivalent for "blaxploitation."

The Lost History of Global Christianity

This lecture by Philip Jenkins, featured on last week's Beeson Divinity School podcast, does precisely what good history is supposed to do: it offers a radically different way of seeing the world simply by pointing out what has always been on record. He gives a brief summary of the influence of Christian patriarchs in China and the ancient Near East, and points out ways in which Christianity influenced the emergence of both Buddhist and Muslim Scriptures. An eye-opening thirty-seven minutes which offer a number of avenues for further study and reflection.