MONK The Play by Laurence Holder Held Over thru JUNE - A Summer Smash Hit ! RSPV tickets Today! KEEP MONK ALIVE! Keep MONK Alive!

[WASHINGTON DC JAZZ NETWORK]

BARRY NIX

MONK, The Play; A Review

Sunday, May 24, 2009

The Blair Mansion Restaurant
Silver Spring, MD.

Rome Neal's one-man show, in which he portrays the legendary be-bop pianist Thelonious Monk, from a Laurence Holder script, is everything we Monk fans need it to be, and that's saying quite a lot.

Thelonious Monk is a symbol, an icon, and a national treasure. Now. He was an innovator, an individualist, an enigma, a genius. All of these traits were in full view as Rome Neal , in a spot-on, intense and emotionally resonant performance, joked, skipped, danced, fulminated, rhapsodized and pontificated. There were expressions of comedic wit, pure joy, utter sadness, loathsome regret, and tender love in the 90-or-so-minute performance that earned Mr. Neal a standing ovation from the nearly-full room in the Blair Mansion Restaurant in Silver Spring, MD, just outside of Washington, D.C.

Mr. Neal has performed Monk off Broadway and has received an Audelco Award for his performance. A prolific New York actor and director, Mr. Neal bears a striking resemblance to Thelonious Monk. Add the attention to detail—the mannerisms, the dress, the "striding," the dancing and the cadence—and you swore Monk was in the room. it was an eerie experience. I saw Monk in performance once, in 1970, I believe, in a show at the University of Rochester in upstate New York. I still remember it. He was a different kind of cat, I knew, if not much more at the time. It took me ten years before I really began to appreciate him, but since then, Monk has occupied a central place in my life. I never stray too far from him. And I play his music nearly every day. So, you see, I had more at stake here than attendance at an ordinarily good show. Not to worry, though. Max Roach saw the show before he passed and proclaimed that the "acting was suberb...it was Monk." 'Nuff said, let's get on the road.

This was no mere theatrical exercise. It was a journey into the creative process and its attendant struggles and joys, costs and rewards. Most artists, especially those who insist on introducing a conceptual overhaul that will alter the ways in which all of us think about the form, experience varying degrees of self-doubt. There were, and still are, many forces aligned against the successful innovator, not the least of which are vested commercial interests unwilling to upset their lucrative apple carts for a "new thing, ya dig?"

Thelonious Monk experienced no such self-doubt. He was merely waiting for everyone else to catch up. Unfortunately, "everyone else," those outside of a select group of hip peers and enlightened outsiders, made him somewhat miserable until they did, but not as miserable as an innovator filled with that dreaded self-doubt. I have often marveled at the inner fortitude he must have possessed to withstand the heat of the non-believers, despite detours into drug addiction, alcoholism and madness. He kicked the drugs, but the madness held on. Thanks to Laurence Holder's marvelous script, and his own deep understanding of the issues involved, Rome Neal explains these subtleties to those who are willing to listen, and Monk's take on the truth of the matters to those who will hear.

The work also explores the connection between genius and madness, the tenuous holding on to a world distant from the one in one's head, and the effects of a society's delayed lack of recognition, and many other major and minor slights, on the lives of many of its true innovators.

Amiri Baraka and Laurence Holder

After the show, the self-effacing Mr. Neal surprisingly remarked how he did not know very much about jazz before encountering Mr. Holder's script.

He told the audience how grateful he was to have played Monk for the past several years and that it has changed his life.

If you are unfamiliar with the history of be-bop, and names like Willie the Lion Smith, James P. Johnson, Oscar Pettiford, Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins, and Milt Jackson don't ring a bell, don't worry, you'll learn quite a bit. The audience at this show included several people from the old days of the Washington, D.C. jazz scene, such as John Malachi, Jr., who regaled his table with stories of his father's times as the pianist for Sarah Vaughn.

Mr. Neal obviously enjoyed the performance venue, as well. The recent $1.5 million renovation looks good on the Blair Mansion Inn. It possesses nearly an ideal combination of formality and informality, sophistication and homliness. Its owners put the music first-for this is a play about music and genius and perseverance. That attitude is also quite apparent, and greatly appreciated, in their A-listed Monday night jam sessions, easily one of the two or three best music values in or outside of Washington. And good food, to boot.

The show was produced by the tireless vocalese singer and local entrepreneur George V. Johnson, Jr, founder of the Washington D.C. Jazz Network, who was quite emotional in his appreciation for a fine turnout.

Leaving the show, one pondered if he should heed Monk's advice, as expressed by Mr. Neal in the play. To paraphrase, "If you run across somebody and they don't listen to jazz, walk away.". If you have to ask....

The final scheduled performance of Monk is scheduled for 3PM on Sunday, May 31st. One would hope that more performances will be scheduled. Calling ahead for reservations is suggested, as word of mouth is quickly turning this into the premier event it deserves to be. Tickets are $35 in advance and $40 at the door. www.blairmansion.com 301-588-1688.

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I found so much of value to take away from this performance that it was difficult to know where to begin. Monk spoke to me personally on many different levels. The show's timeframe is from about 1923, when he began to teach himself to play the piano at the age of six, to 1982, the year of his pasing; a tumultuous time in American history and culture. As such, it lends itself to various personal interpretations and reflections. I thought of a friend of mine, a brilliant saxophonist, trivialized by his drug habit and his inability to understand changing times. The character of Arthur in my novel, The Real Lives of Dreamers, is a composite of the tortured artist unable to realize his potential, as described in the following passage:

Arthur, though, never saw a joint, bottle, cigarette, white line, needle, or pipe he didn’t like. Paul got high for pleasure. He got high, he experienced pleasure, and he stopped. He had gigantic but manageable appetites. Arthur wanted it all and would beg, borrow, steal, pawn, lie, trick, promise, screw, whine, and lick to get it. When it was all over, he had played horn with everybody who mattered and would generate a universal ain’t-it-a-shame-about-Arthur head shake at the first mention of his name. His talent for self-destruction rivaled the famous flameouts of the time. Joplin. Hendrix. Morrison; and the model for too many mid-century artists, Charlie Parker. Well-loved and paranoid, charismatic and always late, a day late, for a gig, his notoriety fueled oil-slick fantasies of back-alley conspiracies against him, paling in comparison to the mad gushers of his own behavior, intense fires stubbornly uncapped despite caring friends and rehab, his destruction assured by the smoldering remains.

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2009.05.18
The Real Lives of Dreamers is Here

A Novel, a Journey and a Magical Creative Statement

“The author creates characters that are considered anomalies in present-day society, yet have charms all their own by virtue of their differences from the commonplace characters that have taken over the literary world in the quest for quantity over quality.” Phoenix Blue Review

Barry L. Nix's revised edition of The Real Lives of Dreamers: Jazz, Blues, Love, and Money, re-titled simply The Real Lives of Dreamers, will soon be available in hardcover and softcover, with a new cover. The current version on Amazon and other electronic booksellers is not the revised version and is in the process of being removed. From this site you can read most of Chapter 2 and download an electronic copy of the novel. Below is an introduction to the novel, taken from the inside flap of the hardcover edition.

Dreams are for lovers. We dream to seek escape, to search for ways to augment present circumstances, to return to a better, more idealized past, to create a utopian future, to sway, to embrace, to float.

Paul is in trouble. He converses with himself. He makes a decision. He embarks on a mission. Then it gets interesting. His friends rally to his side, middle-aged adventurers wondering what happened, where the time went. They each have a story, a story that defies expectations, a life with few regrets and fewer apologies. From the ethereal to the earthy, the philosophical to the practical, the sensual to the bottom line, each is strong-willed; each is intent on re-capturing in middle age the intellectual and moral imperatives he felt as a brave young man in a new and treacherous world.

The Real Lives of Dreamers is especially relevant for its clear-eyed discussions of sex, culture, America, race, ideas and sensuality, love, practicality and transcendence. In a story that is far from predictable, its memorable characters follow their own logic, improvising riffs on a melody of the possible, tapping their feet to the rhythm of the in-between. They celebrate culture and intellectual prowess in a world they see as increasingly hostile to their sensibilities. Covering two continents, several cities, and nearly seventy years, this is highly creative fiction, an example of truths revealed through literature.

Readers have responded to The Real Lives of Dreamers:

“Ultimately, this work is an exposition on what it means to experience fully the best of culture and personal relationships. It is about how one should not set limits on one’s desires and not give in to a defeatist attitude that can lead to an unfulfilled life. Through his rich characters, Barry Nix is able to put forth such a philosophy. They boldly deal with the complications of race, sex, and intellectual achievement in America.” Curtis Davis

More Readers' Reactions

“Brilliant....a unique, very appealing style....vivid descriptions......a very pleasant surprise.....it’s so emotional....steamy....very good....very, very good.....I can feel the passion.....this is an important book....it should be taught in schools....he learned all of the important lessons from the masters....wow....it’s got this, this feeling running through it.....outrageous....I love the writing style.....different from anything I’ve ever read......taught me a lot....a spiritual quality.....an engrossing read, nicely written and packe d with colorful metaphors.....Paul Warner, the central character, comes to life.”

A Note From Barry Nix

"I have walked with people whose eyes are full of light but see nothing in sea and sky, nothing in city streets, nothing in books. It were far better to sail in the night of blindness with sense and feeling and mind than to be content with the mere act of seeing. The only lightless dark is the night in ignorance and insensibility." Helen Keller

The Real Lives of Dreamers tells several stories, stories not often told and even less often believed. It tells stories of hipness and compassion through the thoughts and actions of the scholarly and the bluesy, lovers and killers. I heard their stories sung by birds on their way to somewhere in the sky of their dreams.

What does any writer hope to accomplish? It makes you wonder sometimes, doesn't it? It sometimes seems so difficult to fight through the marketing drudge to get at the wealth of truly good writing available today. I wanted, first and foremost, to write a good, honest story filled with memorable characters and infused with fantasy and sensuality, one that readers would at least find interesting and, ideally, have trouble putting aside. I wanted to say something about people who lead rich internal lives but wander the earth in the shadows for whatever reasons: bad luck, lack of acceptance, an aversion to sunlight. I wanted to write a novel, in this age of non-readers, that all kinds of people would want to read to see what happens next, to laugh, to cry, and to read again to savor the details, then sit back and feel warmer, wiser, and freer. And I wanted to write a story that at least had the potential to contribute to both an individual and collective understanding that is terribly lacking today.

A writer said recently that all novels are autobiographical lies. Yes. A writer must write what he or she knows (to include research), has lived, and can imagine. Education and observation are only the beginning. The truth is strange. Contradictions abound. Realities shift as unpredictably as the paths of hurricanes, impersonal and unconcerned with their effects on people's lives. Lies are everywhere.

In the tradition of the obsessed, I wrote this novel because I had to. And, like any serious writer, I hope it serves as a bridge of sorts, a crossing from the mundane of everyday life to the meaningful, a slap upside the head with a velvet glove, a passing of a certain ethereal torch, a conversation.

This is a story for those who don’t usually read, and for those who must. Through my characters I have sought to engage the intellect and challenge the ludicrous with common sense; to run amok in an ivory tower and morph with the shifty on the ground; to wax eloquently, haughtily, and to philosophize on the street corners of the psyche, earthily, all in the interest of a oneness that disparages sniveling passivity as equally as it does vehement exhortation. In literature, lies show us the way, autobiographical or not. I hope you enjoy The Real Lives of Dreamers.

The Opening Poem

Of Interest: Friedrich Rückert (1788 to 1866), the author of the poem that begins the novel, was a German poet and scholar. Schumann and Mahler set several of his pieces to music.

Excerpts From The Real Lives of Dreamers

"Henderson was beginning to see that his life would never be the same. None of theirs would, probably, Anthony surmised. It’s a terrible thing to be sitting in a restaurant enjoying life when suddenly everything changes forever for so many people because of the idiocy of one man who didn’t get enough love as a child, who never developed a coherent sense of himself and what was important in life, who served his basest needs at the expense of so many."

*******

"The sheer beauty of his playing, like all great art, made Lena question the meaning of everything in the world and outside of it. She felt as if she had had a heart attack. She was happy and sad and seven million gradations in between. For someone to walk on this earth today with that energy was beyond even her understanding. Even the years of sordid behavior had not diminished his purity. She could do nothing but let herself be swept away by it, and sleep peacefully at last."

*******

“He was neither malicious nor pious, as exciting as a piece of tree bark and as caring as a scratchy wool blanket, but a good provider.”

*******

“It was only when it almost ended, his childhood of a thousand dreams, during his privileged entry into the larger world, that he truly understood the depth of his father’s love for him. Only when he understood the enormity of his young-man decisions did he long for the sanctity of his ever-present, extended, familial mantle of protection. Only when change threatened his sense of himself did he understand the safety in continuity. And only when love was gone did he understand its loss.”

*******

“He approached the fragile woman slowly. Colleagues noted that his compassion with this woman was pleasantly out of character. His medical school professors had expressed surprise that he had lasted this long, given his ferocious competitiveness and take-no-prisoners attitude. They had strongly recommended that he spend his career in research and not at patients’ bedsides. But the death of his wife, up close and personal this time, and the ravages of experience, had humanized him and lent an appealing sheen to the lackluster emotional complexion of a brilliant mind focused, in linear fashion, on success.”

*******

“Maybe he really had been lucky. One day, in deep thought after the day's classes, in his first college days, when he was about twenty, during his period of discovering bebop and progressive, Coltrane-influenced, spiritually uplifting jazz, he realized something important. This, of course, was before celebrity became an all-consuming passion for a nation weary of reality. He found that some of these musicians, in addition to Kant and Nietzche, Spinoza and DuBois, Martin and Malcolm, could articulate a philosophy by which he could live. He found affirmation, masculinity, intellectualism, eroticism, art, and deep humanity in their music. He was home. Wasn't that what had gotten him through it all?”

*******

“She had entered the sensual world, the world of the possessed. She had never felt such confidence and power. Education and money had never done for her what those two days had. She shivered. She could almost feel Paul orchestrating it all as he smiled in his sleep. She tried to laugh as she had only the night before, full and throaty, but she couldn’t now. She was too afraid.”