Royal Prerogatives: Prince Alexandre of Belgium

HRH Prince Alexandre of Belgium
July 18 1942 - November 29, 2009

Prince Alexandre of Belgium was born at the Chateau of Laeken on July 18 1942. The eldest of the three children of King Leopold 111 of he Belgian's second marriage, to Liliane Baels, he was also half-brother to the late King Baudouin and the present King Albert.

Alexandre's life was difficult from the start. The Belgian people were devoted t his father’s first wife and resented his father marrying his mother. Alexandre and his two sisters were recognized as members of the Belgian Royal family, but excluded from any rights to the throne. During the war Alexandre and the rest of the royal family were deported to Nazi Germany where they ate inadequate food and lived in fear of imminent death. They were eventually allowed back to Brussels in July 1950 where his father was deemed unfit to reign after surrendering to the Nazis and he ultimately abdicated in 1951.

Alexandre planned to study medicine but settled on a business career. In 1992 he secretly married Lea Inga Dora Wolman of whom his mother disapproved and thereafter chose to invite her son to social occasions without his wife. He had wanted to assume official responsibilities, but had been excluded from these and instead he led the life of a bon vivant, enjoying fine food and the game of bridge.

He died suddenly at his home at Rhode-Saint-Genèse, near Brussels, on November 29. His funeral was held at the church of Notre Dame at Laeken in the presence of the King and Queen, Queen Fabiola and other members of the Belgian Royal Family, and he was buried in the crypt.

He is survived by his wife and his two children, and also by his sisters Princess Marie-Christine of Belgium who has eschewed her royal life and lives in Las Vegas, and Princess Marie-Esméralda of Belgium, Lady Moncada, who is a journalist, writing as Esméralda de Réthy.

Nutcracker, Maine State Ballet

Merrill Auditorium, 637 Highland Avenue, Portland, Maine
Saturday November 28 2009.

The Maine State Ballet occupies the Merril Auditorium in Portland every season for a good solid run of Nutcracker to which everyone comes to see their local infants pretend to be reindeer and sugar plum fairies.

I was naturally wary of this as I dislike the incompetent prancing of children who do not know what they are doing, especially when we are expected to pay respectable prices for the privilege of enduring it. But apart from an uncomfortable first scene in which there was almost no dancing at all owing to the need to establish a uniform standard of mediocrity so the children could keep up, this production really took off.

Not only did the prima ballerina, Elizabeth Dragoni, show that she really could dance with skill, precision and conviction but she was convincingly swept off her feet by the Nutcracker Prince, Glenn Davis, in a pas de deux which was as erotic as it was skilled and beautiful. Similarly, the enormous orchestra conducted by Karla Kelley, kept itself back until the kiddies had gone away for their nap, at which moment they unleashed the symphonic power of a true ballet orchestra and swept the performers off their feet. The “Dance of the Flowers” was one of the most powerful I have ever seen or heard.

I could not help thinking that the Maine State Ballet could perform with real integrity if it did not have to depend so much on tuition fees and the opportunities they create for juvenile "vanity dancing" no matter how crowd pleasing this might be.

Royal Prerogatives: His Tremendousness Giorgio Carbone

His Tremendousness Giorgio Carbone,  Prince of Seborga, 1936 - 12009

Prince Giorgio Carbone died on November 25 aged 73. He was elected prince of Seborga (on the Italian Riviera) from 1963 until his death.

He did not draw a salary, but could help himself to cheese and ham from the village shop without paying.

He leaves no heirs, and Seborga's royal destiny is uncertain.

Finian's Rainbow

By Burton Lane (music) and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (lyrics)

St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th Street, New York, Wednesday November 25th 2009

I was amazed at the Broadway Tickets line that stretched for four blocks from 42nd Street, so I kept walking, to the St James Theatre at West 44th Street, and bought tickets for a 60% discount direct from the box office. No waiting, no delay. It makes me wonder why people line up for tickets that cost more. Perhaps half the fun is standing in the rain in Times Square.

Finian’s Rainbow was revived this summer at City Center’s “Encore” series and was so popular and critically successful that it moved to Broadway with most of the "Encore" cast intact and was given raves by the New York Times (and every other paper as well, as if they count).

I do not really care for leprehauns, of whch this musical brought forth an effusion (the lyricist, Yip Harburg also wrote the book for "The Wizard of Oz"), and the absence of any emotional sympathy with the play was compounded by the fact that the only song I recognized (“How are Things In Glocca Morra?”) took me back to rainy Sunday evenings in Launceston with the ghastly Dawn Lake mooning on the Pye TV set. 

But it was charming to hear all the other the wonderful songs in this show (including "Old Devil Moon" which you can hear in the video below this), which are now forgotten despite the expectation, 50 years ago, that they would live forever. Instead, they died with the commencement of the Eisenhower era.  I guess leprechauns were inconsistent with McCarthyism.

Although the elementary production, comprising a vile green scrim dotted with fake flowers, was outrageously terrible, the cast was strong and worked so well as an ensemble that individuals were almost indistinguishable. The exceptions were the redoubtable Terri White who appropriately stopped the show with her torch song, “Necessity,” the female lead Kate Baldwin whose voice was just right for the role and whose Irish dialect coach must have been a genius, and the eponymous Cheyenne Jackson whose narcissism was as pulverising as his effectiveness in proving wrong those who say that actors cannot be openly gay without ruining their careers.

Watch Broadway.com's promotion of Finian's Rainbow starring Kate Jackson and Cheyenne Jackson:

A Visit to Martha Stewart's TV Show

Omnimedia TV Studios, W26th Street, New York, Tuesday November 24 2009.

Martha Stewart’s TV show is the matrix of all of her productions and merchandising. It's not just a TV show; it produces the raw material for magazines, books and websites as well as design concepts for merchandise and retail methodologies and much of the work is done in “real time” before, during and after taping in the Omnimedia studio on West 26th Street.

Members of the public can go and watch the show being filmed.  The studio audience is remarkably well treated, for a faceless crowd. The corporate Human Resources staff from the main building further down 26th Street are required to meet and greet the audience (referred to as guests) because, according to the charming, smartly-dressed young woman who welcomed me, Martha believes this is the appropriate relationship she wants to have with her customers.

Each guest is given a personal greeting, an assigned seat and a briefing about how the show works and what they are required to do; then they are conducted into the studio and told by the famous warm up man, Joey Kola, how to sit and how to respond to whatever goes on in front of the camera.

Just before taping begins a few individuals in the crowd are moved to different seats by an unseen hand (Martha?), evidently to create a more balanced on - screen palette, and it is obvious when the show was broadcast one week later that there is indeed a fine balance of colours, forming a pointillist effect across the TV screen.

Martha soon materialises in the vast kitchen, stage left of the set. Off camera, she is tall and beautiful and the relaxed and confident expression on her face never changes except when she breaks into a broad grin or a hearty laugh, which she does often when talking to her staff. She is surrounded, like a Delphic Oracle, by swirling steam, but she soon strides out of the kitchen and onto the set and, without pausing, begins to speak.  The audience is entranced to hear that she is profoundly hoarse from laryngitis, but nothing stops Martha Stewart and the show goes on.

Martha Stewart shows Claire Danes
how to make marshmallows

The segments today concern marshmallows, paper folding and Christmas decorations. A movie star, Claire Danes, arrives to help (rather hopelessly) with the cooking and an expert is on hand for each of the craft segments.  But it is quite clear that Martha knows exactly what she is doing and she is firmly in charge not only of the cooking and so on but of whatever is going on anywhere in the studio. She ignores the crowd and the camera and just gets on with it, continuing with her cooking or paper folding through the ad breaks while ensuring that her guests get their work done on time, too. During a commercial break, she orders Claire Danes to do the washing up. 

Martha is refreshingly brisk with Miss Danes, whom she evidently finds slightly irritating, but the actress is a regular on the show so they must understand each other.  “You’ll learn,” she intones when the movie star overturns her mixing bowl all over the counter which Martha has only just mopped up.  After largely ignoring Miss Danes' slightly self conscious account of her extravagant wedding in France, Martha grunts and says “Is it your first?”

Click here to read more about White Noise by David A. Carter

At the end of her segment, having been refused permission to leave until all the marshamallows were fitted neatly into their little plastic bags, Miss Danes is escorted through the wide, wainscoted doors of the show's elegant set and Martha turns her attention to David A. Carter.  His recent book, Bed Bugs: A Pop-Up Bedtime Book, is described by the New York Times as "one of the ten best illustrated children's books of 2009."  Today he is here to promote his latest book, White Noise, a copy of which is given to each of us in the audience, albeit to scant appreciation.  Joey Cola's pre-show comment that Martha was "feeling generous"  might have over-raised expectations, audience members being all too aware of Oprah Winfrey's on-screen generosity.

Everyone knows Martha Stewart can cook, but the audience is captivated by the fierce concentration with which she produces an elaborate folding paper Christmas tree, live on camera, in no time at all.  For someone with severe laryngitis, she is not only well rehearsed, but her perfectionism is demonstrated yet again during the commercial break, when the cameras are not rolling.  While Mr. Carter marks time in the shadows, and her massive studio crew races to change sets around her, Martha continues to work on her tree, ignoring all except a friendly young woman who brings her a cup of herbal tea.  It's difficult to avoid observing that Martha quickly establishes an edge of competetion between herself and her guests, whether consciously incompetent cooks, like Claire Danes, or acknowledged experts, like Mr. Carter.  Indeed, Mr. Carter appears to realise what he is up against and seems relieved when Martha moves on and he has been escorted through the wainscoted doors.

The Asian Christmas Tree

The next segment is intriguing not only because its focus is the creation of an Asian Christmas Tree but because her guest is the increasingly well - known Kevin Sharkey.  Pencil thin, laser- focused and evidently as driven as Martha, Kevin Sharkey is her accomplished home design editor and somewhat of a controversial character himself, owing in part at least to the obvious personal rapport he has with his boss.  They appear to thrive on each other's obsession with whatever they are doing; Martha Stewart is very relaxed around him, and he seems to find it easy to make her laugh.  Even so, when he proudly produces a huge plastic bonsai to form the frame of the Christmas Tree, she remains competitive. 

"Do you know how to paint a tree?" she challenges.  Without waiting for his answer she seizes the entire tree and up-ends it into an enormous garbage can full of water with a slurry of paint on the top.

“See,” she says, pulling out the delicately - coated branches, “paint floats." 

Kevin appears to be speechless. 

"Did you know that?” insists Martha.  Kevin flinches slightly and takes a couple of steps back.

Kevin Sharkey

Between the two of them they somewhat combatively decorate the Asian Christmas Tree so it resembles a drawing by Old Mister Wang, and the show is over.  But not quite; the lights go down and the cameras are switched off and Martha wanders into the audience and does an entirely spontaneous home hints Q and A, off the cuff and unrecorded.  A woman from Philadelphia asks her how to make perfect fondant, as if this is the sole reason for her long trek into Manhattan. 

"Buy it at Cake and Bake," she replies, throwing an elegant arm upwards and behind her head, in the vague direction of New York Cake and Baking Supply on 22nd Street. "I always do."  The crowd is silent, apparently stunned. 

"Oh, come on!" yells Martha. "It's sugar and water, nothing to waste time on."

With this, a beast is unleashed and Martha Stewart is pelted with an uninhibited torrent of earnest questions about short cuts and efficiency measures.  Someone even asks her where to buy the best pizza. She seems to enjoy this rally with her fans, not only because she knows what she is talking about, but because she enjoys demonstrating that this is so.  She comes close to laughing at herself, especially when asked how to measure out a pint. 

"A pint is a pound, the world around," she laughs, instantly.  "Did you know that?"

New York Cake and Baking Supplies
52 West 22nd Street, New York, NY, 10010

She wanders, chatting.  Unlike many American crowds, this studio audience is not overawed by her celebrity, but they really do want her advice.  It's difficult to tell what she is better at, household hints or people management.  She's a master at creating happy customers who want more and more of her advice, her books, kitchen gadgets, shopping bags, clothes and umbrellas, millions of which are sold every month on line, in shops, and at the studio itself.

Martha works the crowd, happily and effortlessly creating the impression that she is reluctant to end this time we've had together.  People are quietly and sincerely mesmerised by her and it comes as a surprise and a bit of a relief when she suddenly says she has to be off, gives a casual wave and disappears with Kevin Sharkey into the vast stage left kitchen from which she entered over two hours previously, and from which she will soon emerge for another taping. 

We are individually escorted from the studio with exquisite courtesy and handed a goody bag containing David A. Carter's book.  Another smiling Omnimedia personality hands us our coats and scarves, all of which have been invisibly tagged so as to return to their rightful owners, and waves us goodbye at the studio door.  We are sent very happily on our way after what feels like a delightful afternoon at home with Martha Stewart, and her amazing merchandising machine.

Complexions Contemporary Ballet

Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson (artistic directors)

Joyce Theatre, 175 8th Avenue, New York
Tuesday November 24 2009

Complexions’ current season at the Joyce, 8th Avenue at 23rd Street, is the hit of the fall Manhattan dance season and I was lucky to get a seat at the performance last Tuesday night.  I did not read the program notes before the curtain rose because I was so interested in seeing who else was there. I have never seen so many unaccompanied people, very seriously taking notes or reading the program or signalling greetings to each other. Judging by their appearance they were now or had once been dancers themselves, and I felt both privileged and fraudulent to be a mere dilettante in the midst of what was obviously a serious ballet crowd.  My distraction paid off because my first gasp occurred when the curtain rose on the entire company confronting the audience in a stance of defiant pulchritude before they hurled themselves into what felt like an intense representation of the tortures of birth, life and death.  This swept along to conclude in a phenomenal and gravity-defying epiphany as the dancers were swept up on each other’s shoulders in an elevating spiral of grace. During the interval I was moved to read that this was the first act of “Mercy,” a ballet by Complexions’ choreographer Dwight Rhoden, who created it in memory of Patrick Swayze, who was beloved by the company and whose wife is on the Board.

The Late Christopher Bean

By Sidney Howard

Actors' Theater, 410 West 42nd Street, New York
Monday November 23 2009.

I went to the Actors’ Theatre at the Beckett Theatre, 42nd Street, to see a revival of this very funny play about losing money. It was written by Sidney Howard, who won an Academy Award for the screen play of “Gone With the Wind,” and it was last seen in New York at its first season in 1932, though it was revived for Jean Stapleton in Washington DC 20 years ago.

The superficialities of time and place have aged of course (a rural doctor’s house no longer has live-in domestic staff, telegrammes no longer exist (alas) and tastes in dress and furnishings have changed, even in Massachusetts).  But the premise, that it is a tragedy to lose money you never had, seemed to resonate with the Manhattan audience.

All the actors were strong and well cast. The star of the show is said to be James Murtaugh who played the patriarchal doctor, but my attention was fixed on Cynthia Darlow. Her portrayal of a frustrated matriarch who has had to “make do” for decades, and whose cork is popped by the appalling circumstances that unfold for her and her family, was shatteringly hilarious.

Die Große Stille [Into Great Silence]

Philip Groning (Director, Screenplay, Editor, Cinematographer)

Documentary, Germany 2005, 162 minutes; Philip Groning, Elda Guidinetti, Andres Pfaffli, Michael Weber, Michael Stricker (Producers)

Many years ago I met a charming man who had, for a time, dedicated himself to a silent, enclosed order of monks. His account of the experience made me want to know more about it and I even developed the conceited fantasy that I too should dedicate my life to silence.

Philip Gröning had the same fascination and in 1984 he wrote to the Carthusian Order high in the Chartreuse Mountains and asked them to give him permission to film them. The Order replied that it would let him know when a decision had been made, and sixteen years later (a mere moment in time), it was ready. This documentary is the result.

Gröning lived with the monks for six months during which he closely observed their daily activities - with a camera. Apart from the creaking sounds of the ancient building and the disciplined routine of the monks, the film is mostly silent and establishes a clear sense of the rigorous, ascetic discipline of the life of silent contemplation.

Anyone would think this observant film would be an adequate substitute for those like me, whose egos allow them merely to fantasize about taking eternal vows in a silent order.  But the film left me with such a sense of calm and serenity that I cannot understand why it did not spark a stampede of frustrated bourgeoise heading to the Grande Chartreuse in search of the contemplative life.

Watch the trailer:

 

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

By Mary Roach

W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2003; Softcover; ISBN-13: 9780393324822 ISBN: 0393324826


This "larf 'n barf" account of the uses to which corpses are put attracted the attention of more than a few of my fellow passengers on the train from Pennsylvania Station last Friday, and rightly so. Occasionally I had to put it down, either because I was turning green or because I was convulsed with laughter.

The opening chapter reveals a room full of baking trays containing the freshly sawn-off heads which await a plastic surgeons' face lift class. Did you know that Botox is derived from cadavers donated to medical science? Want to know how to transplant a head, or learn more about "organ harvesting"?

If it all becomes too much, turn for a sweet note to the section concerning "mummy candy," a confection comprising dainty slices of the fermented bodies of old men who willingly spent the last ten years of their lives eating nothing but honey so as to be transformed into a yummy snack.

The book surprises and alarms and in my case it ensured a 12 hour train journey from New York to Maine passed in what seemed like a moment.

Visit Mary Roach 's website