Mountain Views News          Saturday, January 23, 2016

12

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Mountain Views-News Saturday, January 23, 2016 

On the Marquee: Notes from the Sierra Madre Playhouse

Jeff’s Book Pics By Jeff Brown

Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words by Malka 
Marom 

When singer, musician, and broadcast journalist 
Malka Marom had the opportunity to interview 
Joni Mitchell in 1973, she was eager to reconnect 
with the performer she’d first met late one 
night in 1966 at a Yorkville coffeehouse. More 
conversations followed over the next four decades 
of friendship, and it was only after Joni and 
Malka completed their last recorded interview, 
in 2012, that Malka discovered 
the heart of their discussions: 
the creative process. In Joni 
Mitchell: In Her Own Words, 
Joni and Malka follow this 
thread through seven decades 
of life and art, discussing the 
influence of Joni’s childhood, 
love and loss, playing dives 
and huge festivals, acclaim 
and criticism, poverty and 
affluence, glamorous triumphs 
and tragic mistakes . This 
riveting narrative, told in 
interviews, lyrics, paintings, 
and photographs, is shared 
in the hope of illuminating 
a timeless body of work and 
inspiring others.

Dark Money: The Hidden 
History of the Billionaires 
Behind the Rise of the 
Radical Right by Jane 
Mayer

Why is America living in an age of 
profound economic inequality? 
Why, despite the desperate need 
to address climate change, have 
even modest environmental 
efforts been defeated again and 
again? Why have protections for 
employees been decimated? Why 
do hedge-fund billionaires pay a 
far lower tax rate than middle-
class workers?The conventional 
answer is that a popular uprising 
against “big government” led 
to the ascendancy of a broad-
based conservative movement. 
But as Jane Mayer shows in 
this powerful, meticulously reported history, 
a network of exceedingly wealthy people 
with extreme libertarian views bankrolled a 
systematic, step-by-step plan to fundamentally 
alter the American political system. Jane 
Mayer spent five years conducting hundreds of 
interviews-including with several sources within 
the network-and scoured public records, private 
papers, and court proceedings in reporting this 
book. In a taut and utterly convincing narrative, 
she traces the byzantine trail of the billions of 
dollars spent by the network and provides vivid 
portraits of the colorful figures behind the new 
American oligarchy.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul 
Kalanithi 

This book is a profoundly moving, exquisitely 
observed memoir by a young neurosurgeon 
faced with a terminal cancer 
diagnosis who attempts to 
answer the question What 
makes a life worth living?At the 
age of thirty-six, on the verge of 
completing a decade’s worth 
of training as a neurosurgeon, 
Kalanithi was diagnosed with 
stage IV lung cancer. One day he 
was a doctor treating the dying, 
and the next he was a patient 
struggling to live. And just 
like that, the future he and his 
wife had imagined evaporated. 
The book chronicles 
Kalanithi’s transformation 
from a naïve medical student 
“possessed,” as he wrote, “by 
the question of what, given 
that all organisms die, makes 
a virtuous and meaningful 
life” into a neurosurgeon at 
Stanford working in the brain, 
the most critical place for 
human identity, and finally 
into a patient and new father 
confronting his own mortality.
What makes life worth living in 
the face of death? What do you 
do when the future, no longer 
a ladder toward your goals in 
life, flattens out into a perpetual 
present? What does it mean to 
have a child, to nurture a new 
life as another fades away? 
These are some of the questions 
Kalanithi wrestles with in this 
profoundly moving, exquisitely 
observed memoir.Paul died in 
March 2015, while working on 
this book, yet his words live on 
as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize 
that coming face to face with my own mortality, in 
a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he 
wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began 
to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” 
When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, 
life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing 
death and on the relationship between doctor and 
patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.

A BOUNTY OF CHOICES

By Artistic Director, Christian Lebano

 A couple of years ago I was inspired to reach out 
to the Colburn Conservatory to see if they would 
be interested in collaborating on a series of concerts 
featuring musicians from their school. To my great 
pleasure they thought the idea was good and after 
seeing the Playhouse and appreciating just how 
good the acoustics are signed on. Since then we’ve 
had a wonderful succession of pre-professional 
musicians create truly magical evenings of music. 
We’ve had pianists, string quartets, brass quintets, 
vocalists, and small ensembles playing music as 
varied as Mozart, Ravel, and Piazzolla. I have said 
about the series “see them at the Playhouse before 
you see them at the Phil!” and I haven’t been too far 
off as several of the musicians have already gone on 
to much bigger venues.

 On Sunday, January 31 at 7pm we will host our 
first concert of the year (we have 3 more planned 
through the spring including February 14 and 
May 8 with another to be scheduled in March/
April) featuring Regulo Martinez-Anton in a 
piano concert dedicated to the music of Enrique 
Granados a Spanish composer who drowned while 
attempting to rescue his wife after their ship was 
torpedoed by a German u-boat. Granados’ music 
is well known in Spain but not often played here. 
This is the 100th anniversary of his birth and Mr. 
Martinez-Anton has crafted a lovely concert which 
will introduce him to many for the first time.

Tickets for the concert are $20 for adults and $15 
for students. A few essays back I talked about 
making the Playhouse your drop-in living room. 
How wonderful to amble down and hear this 
beautiful music just blocks from your home. I 
think for those of you who haven’t attended one, a 
single visit will make you a fan. 

* * *

 On Monday, January 25 at 7pm we are launching 
a new Initiative at the Playhouse – a once-a-month 
FREE reading series of plays I am interested in 
producing in the future. These plays will generally 
be the last Monday of the month and will be 
directed and star many actors you’ve enjoyed 
over the last few years. D.J. Harner (who played 
Mother and General Cutter in Battledrum) will 
work with me to produce this Series (we haven’t 
settled on a name yet). Arthur Hanket (who was 
in The Twentieth Century) will direct and perform 
in Eric Overmyer’s On the Verge a wonderful play 
I can’t wait to hear out loud. Do come, we’ll have 
refreshments and it should be great fun. I have a 
wonderful list of plays coming up: Bus Stop, The 
Skin of Our Teeth, The Octoroon and many more. 
The complete schedule and list of plays is on our 
website: SierraMadrePlayhouse.org

* * *

 Deathtrap is selling briskly, it runs through 
February 20. This one is great fun – opening night 
audience were shocked by all the surprises - don’t 
miss it. Reviews have been glowing! Please visit 
our website at SierraMadrePlayhouse.org or call 
Mary at 626.355.4318 to arrange your purchase. 


SPECIAL MUSIC EVENT CELEBRATING 
GRANADOS AT SIERRA MADRE PLAYHOUSE 

ON JANUARY 31

Sierra Madre Playhouse and Colburn Conservatory 
of Music continue their collaboration of presenting 
superior evenings of traditional and contemporary 
classical music for a third season. Our first such 
event this year is Celebrating Granados: His Life, 
His Influences, His Music.

 Enrique Granados (1867-1916), revered in his 
native Spain, is less well-known by American 
audiences. Our January concert commemorates 
the centennial of his death. In 1916, following the 
New York premiere of his opera Goyescas (based 
on his earlier piano pieces inspired by the paintings 
of Francisco Goya) and a special piano recital for 
President Woodrow Wilson, Granados and his 
wife set sail for the return voyage to Europe. They 
perished when their vessel was sunk by a German 
U-Boat. They were survived by six children, one of 
them a musician.

 Prize-winning pianist, recording artist, and 
former Fulbright scholar Régulo Martinez-Antón, 
the recipient of the Professional Studies Certificate 
from the Colburn Conservatory of Music and 
currently a piano faculty member at the Colburn 
School of Performing Arts and the Montecito 
International Music Festival, has assembled the 
program for the January 31 concert. A native of 
Madrid, Martinez-Antón has a special affinity for 
the works of Granados. The concert will feature 
not only works by Granados, but also by his 
influences.

 The program:

 Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Arabeske in C 
major, Op. 18

 Fredreric Chopin (1810-1849) Nocturne op. 62 
in B major

 Franz Liszt (1811-1886) Sonetto 47 del Petrarca

Sonetto 104 del Petrarca

Sonetto 123 del Perrarca

Intermission

 

Enrique Granados (1867-1916) from Danzas 
españolas, op. 37 Andaluza

Oriental from Goyescas Los requibros (The

 Compliments)

Quejas o la maja y el ruiseñor (Complaints 
or the Maiden and the Nightingale)

 El pelele

“Martinez-Antón’s performance was astounding.”-
---Stage & Cinema

 “The music of Régulo Martinez-Antón is always 
an adventure:----Rhein Zeitung (Germany)

 

 Celebrating Granados promises to be an 
extraordinary evening of musicianship and 
listening pleasure. It’s not to be missed.

Jeff’s History Corner By Jeff Brown

1.The History and development of canning.During 
the first years of the Napoleonic Wars, the French 
government offered a hefty cash award of 12,000 francs 
to any inventor who could devise a cheap and effective 
method of preserving large amounts of food. The larger 
armies of the period required increased and regular 
supplies of quality food. Limited food availability was 
among the factors limiting military campaigns to the 
summer and autumn months. In 1809, Nicolas Appert, 
a French confectioner and brewer, observed that food 
cooked inside a jar did not spoil unless the seals leaked, 
and developed a method of sealing food in glass jars.
Appert was awarded the prize in 1810 by Count 
Montelivert, a French minister of the interior. The 
reason for lack of spoilage was unknown at the time, 
since it would be another 50 years before Louis Pasteur 
demonstrated the role of microbes in food spoilage.

2.Edmund Gerald “Jerry” Brown Jr.was born in San 
Francisco, the only son of four children born to 
District Attorney of San Francisco and later Governor 
of California, Edmund Gerald “Pat” Brown Sr., and 
his spouse, Bernice Layne Brown.His father was of 
half Irish and half German descent. Brown’s great 
grandfather August Schuckman, a German immigrant, 
settled in California in 1852 during the California Gold 
Rush.Brown was a member of the California Cadet 
Corps at St. Ignatius High School, where he graduated 
in 1955. In 1955, Brown entered Santa Clara University 
for a year, and left to attend Sacred Heart Novitiate, a 
Jesuit novice house, intent on becoming a Catholic 
priest. Brown left 

the novitiate after three years, enrolling at the UC 
Berkeley in 1960, where he graduated with a Bachelor 
of Arts in Classics in 1961. Brown went on to Yale Law 
School and graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1964. 

 After law school, Brown worked as a law clerk for 
California Supreme Court Justice Mathew Tobriner.
Brown served as the 34th Governor from 1975 to 1983. 
Prior to and following his first governorship, Brown 
served in numerous state, local and party positions, 
including three times a candidate for the Democratic 
nomination for President of the United States.After 
six years out of politics, Brown returned to public life, 
serving as Mayor of Oakland (1999–2007) and Attorney 
General of California (2007–2011). He then decided to 
run for another term as governor. He was able to do so 
due to a grandfather clause in a term-limit law passed 
in 1990 for state office. The law limited a governor to 
two terms, but the four living governors when the law 
was passed (which consisted of himself, Brown’s father 
Pat, his predecessor Ronald Reagan, and his successor 
George Deukmejian, who was in office when the law 
was enacted) were still eligible for election. Running 
against Meg Whitman in 2010, Brown became the 
39th Governor in 2011; on October 7, 2013, he became 
the longest-serving governor in California history, 
surpassing Earl Warren. He was re-elected in 2014 with 
sixty percent of the vote. As a consequence of the 28-
year gap between his second and third terms, Brown has 
been both the sixth-youngest California governor (the 
youngest since 1863),and the oldest California governor 
in history.

ADULT CLASS IN THE FINE ART OF MOSAIC

Join Ellen Dinerman in a class learning the art of 
mosaics. Students may bring a desired project to 
complete or design and create a tray filled with your 
own original mosaic.

Class will be held at Weizmann Day School

Thursdays, 9:30-11:00 am, January 21, 28 & 
February 4, 11, 18, 25, $125.00 - Includes materials

Register in WDS Office, 626-797-0204


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com