The Hothouse

The Hothouse, by Harold Pinter, was written in 1958 (contemporary to his reputation-building The Dumb Waiter and The Birthday Party) but not produced and published until 1980. The play may look back to conventional British satire and sex farce, but it does so shaded with Harold Pinter’s signature coloring of offstage menace. We watch the staff of a sanatorium for mental illnesses bumble through the investigation of a mysterious birth by one of the patients. What ensues includes gratuitously painful electroshock therapy and mayhem that leaves many of the professional staff dead. Although Roote, the administrator of the deathly place (played by Michael John Casey as a marionette martinet who gradually comes unstrung), declares that the maintenance of Order is the most important thing to him, what he gets is anything but.

Each member of the cast incorporates a distinctive physical style into his or her character, and this serves to animate what can be at times a talky script (especially for Pinter, the poet of silences). Noteworthy among them are Jason Lott’s naive and pop-eyed Lamb, a night watchman who lives up to his Dickensian tag name, and Jonathon Church’s menacing, cat-like Lush, lithely negotiating the huge level changes in Elizabeth Jenkins McFadden’s practical set.

Kathleen Akerley, in a director’s note, suggests that the play offers the possibility of hope, its events occurring as they do on Christmas Day. But it’s a Christmas Day when the falling snow has turned to slush, and the closing scene shows us that this hope is misplaced.

  • The Hothouse, by Harold Pinter, directed by Kathleen Akerley, produced by Longacre Lea, Callan Theatre, Washington

Thump

Ellen Barry and James Estrin follow Colin Grubel, graduate student in biology at Queens College, to Swinburne Island in Lower New York Bay. Swinburne hosts a colony of Double-Crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus), whose numbers have rebounded, like those of other top predators, in response to the DDT ban. Grubel’s field work involves collecting cormorant boli, in order to determine what food items they’re taking. (And thus perhaps to foster greater acceptance of the birds by fishermen, who see them as competition.) Fortunately for Grubel, the birds are very forthcoming with their regurgitation.

“I’ve been hit on occasion,” he said. “In some ways it’s almost this great personal experience between you and the birds.”

Squeezed

Suhas Sreedhar explains why the old Bruce Springsteen CDs that I’ve ripped sound so much quieter than newer tracks. The dynamic range of CDs (as opposed to vinyl) and digital signal compression technology made it happen.

In the 1980s, CDs were mastered so that songs generally peaked at about -6 dBFS [0 decibels full scale, the loudest point of the dynamic range] with their root mean square (RMS)—or average levels—hovering around -20 dBFS to -18 dBFS. As multidisc CD changers began to gain prominence in households toward the end of the decade, the same jukebox-type loudness competition started all over again as record companies wanted their CDs to stick out more than their competitors’. By the end of the 1980s, songs on CDs were amplified to the point where their peaks started pushing the loudness limit of 0 dBFS. At this point, the only way to raise the average levels of songs without having their loudest parts clipped—the digital equivalent of distortion, where information is lost because it exceeds the bit capacity—was to compress the peaks.

And as music players become smaller and more rugged (I moved from a sports-model water-resistant Walkman to a hard-drive-based iPod and aspire to a solid-state one), we’re taking them more places with us and we expect the music to be there. Music on the subway as the train rumbles through a tunnel is a commonplace now.

But the problem doesn’t just lie on the production end. If people are listening to songs in a noisy environment—such as in their cars, on trains, in airport waiting rooms, at work, or in a dormitory—the music needs to be louder to compensate. Dynamic-range compression does just that and more. Not only does it raise the average loudness of the song, but by doing so it eliminates all the quiet moments of a song as well. So listeners are now able to hear the entire song above the noise without getting frustrated by any inaudible low parts.

This might be one of the biggest reasons why most people are completely unaware of the loss of dynamics in modern music. They are listening to songs in less-than-ideal environments on a constant basis. But many listeners have subconsciously felt the effects of overcompressed songs in the form of auditory fatigue, where it actually becomes tiring to continue listening to the music.

Significant Others wrapup

We struck Significant Others this afternoon, insofar as packing up some props and moving a few pieces of furniture back to storage can be called a strike. Leta and I got two solid performances in, after some technically shifty work on our part on Thursday and Friday. The flavors continued to develop over the weekend, and at least some of the fishy bits on my part got clearer. Now I regret not having a few more rehearsals to continue to sharpen things up.

It was fun to get to do a part with so much light banter: think of the fiery relationship between Walter and Hildy in His Girl Friday. And to get most of the laughs, even though I still don’t understand why “It wasn’t my fault. She was your sister.” was so successful.

Director Sharon also dressed the set as one of the outdoor lounges at an expensive wedding reception, and it looked great. We reused the table and chairs that we used for The Gold Lunch last year (which turn out to belong to Andrea, and they’re going back to her house, which is too bad, ’cause it’s nearly the only nice furniture the Stage had).

Update: In an earlier draft I neglected to mention the fabulous tuxedo that Sharon rented for me from a local shop in exchange for a program ad. It’s the first time I’ve worn clothes with bar codes on them. Leta also bargained a sparkly lavender formal (flashy, but not to outshine the bride) for herself.

I took a suggestion from Evan and learned my pages back to front, which worked well for me. I think he says something like, “as the play progresses, you’re heading for your happy place, where you are most familiar with the script.” And Husband has his longer passages toward the end of the play. Early on, the dialogue that Steve has written is a lot of short phrases and sentences, and easy to learn. But it’s full of transitions that sort of skip from to another like following stones in a stream crossing (and it was these transitions that gave me memory trouble), as Husband is trying to ask a question that he’s not sure he wants to hear the answer to. In fact, Husband never does ask in so many words, and Wife calls him on it.

HUSBAND: What did I say?

WIFE: Nothing. But I know what you were thinking.

HUSBAND: I wasn’t thinking anything.

WIFE: You were.

HUSBAND: I was. And the answer is no?

The pleasant surprise was that the rush-hour commute to Maryland was much easier to take than it was in July. Friday, I barely slowed at the big curves on the Beltway near the Mormon Temple, and otherwise had a straight drive in, so I was way too early arriving for my call. I guess everyone really did go to the shore this month.

Over the years, I’ve developed a number of tactical responses to the inevitable traffic jams in eastern Fairfax and lower Montgomery Counties. At bottom, you have to cross the triple barriers of the Potomac River, the CSX railroad corridor, and Rock Creek and its greenbelt, and you have a limited number of ways to do it. I’ve assembled routes involving Chain Bridge, Western Avenue, and East-West Highway; or University Boulevard through Kensington if I bail out of the Beltway once I get across the river; or my new tricky favorite:

  • cross the Potomac on the Beltway at Cabin John, and immediately slide off onto the Barton Parkway;
  • at the first exit, jog over to MacArthur Boulevard;
  • cross over on the stone arch bridge, restricted for many years to one lane of traffic in alternating directions;
  • climb out of the valley on Wilson Lane (can be a bad left turn here);
  • traversing a lot of expensive real estate, tack left and right on Rayburn Road, Bradley Boulevard, Huntington Parkway, Old Georgetown Road, and then on to Cedar Lane;
  • cross under the Beltway and turn into Beach Drive to follow Rock Creek east and downstream;
  • left on Stoneybrook Drive, past the Temple campus and over the railroad, around an incredibly blind curve to the intersection with Capitol View Avenue;
  • wind through more historic neighborhoods, turn left on Forest Glen Avenue at the old stone post office;
  • cross Georgia Avenue and Sligo Creek;
  • freestyle from here: Sligo Creek Parkway or Brunett Avenue or any of the neighborhood streets to University Boulevard;
  • and you’re in Four Corners!

Caveat emptor

So now we have a uniform, federal certification program (the NOP) for organic food. Should be easy to trust that geen and white label, to know that what’s on the breakfast table was raised without chemical nasties, eh? Not so fast. The program appears to be woefully underfunded, as Andrew Martin reports:

The National Organic Program, which regulates the industry, has just nine staff members and an annual budget of $1.5 million….

Other parts of the Department of Agriculture spend roughly $28 million or so a year on organic research, data collection and farmer assistance….

With just nine employees, one of whom performs clerical duties, the National Organic Program would be lucky to effectively oversee the organic industry in Vermont, let alone the rest of the world.

Not even trying

It’s a little of a dog-bites-man story, but the kerfluffle over the bad D.C. geography in the new Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake is entertaining in a wince-inducing way. Just one among the apparently many gaffes, spotted by Reliable Source:

To get from Georgetown to Cleveland Park, [Nicole Kidman as Carol Bennell] drives through a tunnel. Seems like the long route. Oh, it’s also rush hour and there’s no traffic. In our dreams.

Some links: 19

Via Laura’s Birding Blog, David Sibley summarizes research about what kills birds. The design of the bar chart is unfortunate: Sibley is apparently trying to use bar lengths to represent estimated values in most cases and error ranges in others. Nevertheless, the take-away is that some of the high-profile causes of avian mortality (oil spills, collisions with wind turbines) are minor compared to the tolls taken by feral and domestic cats, and by collisions with windows.

Imprinting

Phllip Ball reviews a special number of the journal Homeopathy (published by Elsevier, a competitor) devoted to papers on “the memory of water.” He keeps the expected snarkiness in check, for the most part.

The procedures and protocols on display here are often unusual, if not bizarre, because it seems the one thing you must not do on any account is the simplest experiment that would probe any alleged ‘memory’ effect: to look for the persistent activity of a single, well-defined agent in a simple reaction—say an enzyme or an inorganic catalyst—as dilution clears the solution of any active ingredient.

Hellzapoppin

Jack Marshall and American Century Theater attempt a reconstruction of Olsen and Johnson’s chaotic music and comedy revue of 1938, Hellzapoppin. Whether the show matches the popular vaudeville-influenced mayhem of the original is a question for experts of the era to answer. Marshall’s show is nevertheless an entertaining evening for fans of Hee Haw-corny jokes; running gags that run on and on and on and on (a bellhop wanders in with a potted plant to be delivered to “Mrs. Kenney,” and each time he reappears the plant has grown by 18 inches); goofy patter songs (“He Broke My Heart (in Three Places)” is a geographical mouthful of American place names mastered by Esther Covington as Robin Finch); “anything can happen day” hijinks; stooges in the audience lobbing food items onstage à la Rocky Horror; Hexagon-style political satire; and merciless fourth wall breaking. Oh, and don’t forget the singalongs. There is also an unhelpful program that promises a recreation of the Battle of Hastings and readings from Remembrance of Things Past. Fortunately, these promises are not kept.

Bill Karukas plays the slightly more sophisticated and bemused Ole Olson, Dan Rowan to the Dick Martin of Doug Krenzlin’s lumpish but sporting Chic Johnson. As the two preside over the shenanigans, they’re at their most effective when they let us know, “yes, we know that bit is so old it’s collecting Social Security, just let it go and we’ll move on.” All in all, the songs of the revue fare better than the jokes, perhaps because they’re played more lightly; at times, the cast is just selling the jokes too hard. The blizzard of costume changes that the cast plows through every night is impressive, and maybe this accounts for the snug configuration of Gunston’s black box Theater One, with a minimum of audience seating. Anyhow, this is the only time in your life you’re going to get to hear Doodles Weaver’s silly version of “Eleanor Rigby” performed live (at least, let us hope so!), so relax and enjoy the show.

  • Hellzapoppin, concept and book by Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, directed by Jack Marshall, American Century Theater, Arlington, Virginia

Better view desired

Joshua Yaffa explains Clearview, the replacement typeface for highway signs, for the magazine section of the New York Times.

The timing of the piece is interesting, coming as it does in the first Sunday edition of the new, smaller 12-inch “broadsheet” format for the newspaper. Not all the sections have been redesigned to fit the new page size. The leading for the inside pages of the book review is particularly ugly, and there’s a subtle alignment flaw around around the illustration for Christoper Hitchens’ review of the last Harry Potter.