Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

REVIEW: “Seven Guitars” by August Wilson in Boston

Boston area people: If you want a superb theatre experience, see if you can score tickets to “Seven Guitars” by the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, appearing at Roxbury’s Hibernian Hall.

All the best elements are here: spot-on direction by Maurice Emmanuel Parent, seven remarkable actors, perhaps the finest 20th Century playwright August Wilson, and an intimate community theatre in which every seat is a good seat.

One of Wilson’s ten “Century Cycle” plays set in subsequent decades, “Seven Guitars” starts with the funeral of Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton and then looks back at what led to this budding musician’s death. All the action takes place in the backyard of a house in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, where both August Wilson and I (two years later) were born.

This production perfectly catches every nuance and complication in Wilson’s incomparable writing. Hurry to experience this reasonably affordable, accessible night out (there’s an elevator and plenty of free nearby parking); this show ends March 5th.

REVIEW: The Oscar-Nominated Live Action Shorts (2023)

The Live Action shorts are my favorites. There are also Animations and Documentaries, which are a treat as well. I always assume that the people involved with making shorts are less likely to have resources and support, and more likely to have a point of view that hasn’t been fully explored by big filmmakers.

In past years, I’ve been aggravated by Live Action shorts because they were violent, vicious, war-themed, crime-themed – in short, same ole, same ole.

This year, all five films have a humanity to them that made for both easy and interesting viewing. After I turned 75 I decided that I would allow myself not to finish a book or a film that did not have a single character I could give a shit about. I found myself empathetic to each of these stories.

THE ONE I THINK MIGHT WIN
Eirik Tveiten’s “Night Ride (Nattrikken)” takes place on a Norwegian tram that has been hijacked by a Little Person when it was too cold to wait a half hour for the driver, on his break, to let her in. What starts as playing “driver,” ends up in a mad ride. She stops and picks up passengers, but when a transwoman rider is attacked by some dickheads, she has to make a daunting decision.

THE OTHER ONE THAT MIGHT WIN
The Luxembourg film “The Red Suitcase,” directed by Cyrus Neshvad, is the most gripping of the films. A head-scarfed young Iranian woman stands alone at a baggage carousel watching her small red suitcase go around and around. She is terrified to exit into the main airport where an older man with red flowers is awaiting her. Her hesitation draws the attention of security and they search her bag which is full of drawings and art supplies. The man outside is getting increasingly pissed off as she attempts to escape him. This is a gripping, emotional film with little dialogue, but a plethora of punch.

THE MOST EXQUISITE AND PAINFUL ONE
“Ivalu,” adapted from a Danish graphic novel by director Anders Walter, counterposes exquisite Greenland landscapes with excruciating abuse. Ivalu, one of two sisters, goes missing, and the other, Pipaluk, searches all of their private play spots – across fields of ice, craggy mountains, and dangerous fjords. Her terror for her sister dredges up memories she has been trying to exile. So many sweet girls around the world are experiencing the same devastating childhoods.

THE ONE I DOUBT WILL WIN
Two Irish brothers, one with disabilities who has lived on the family farm with his mother, and one who is making a life for himself in the city, meet over their mother’s ashes in the country in “An Irish Goodbye” by Tom Berkeley and Ross White. This film is funny and fun, as the rural brother tries to convince the urban brother to stay on the farm with him, during their challenge to complete the mother’s 100-item bucket list.

THE ONE I DON’T WANT TO WIN
Set in an Italian orphanage for girls during the 1940s, Alice Rohrwacher’s “Le Pupille” centers around the struggle between a little girl and a stern Mother Superior who dangles a luscious Christmas cake in front of the kids and then makes them “volunteer” to forgo a piece. The whole thing is rather predictable and in light of the heinous crimes of the Catholic Church to the children in their care, it’s a bit silly. I wasn’t surprised that Disney was behind this film. And that it was produced by the award-winning Alfonso Cuarón.

Book Review: “American Sirens” by Kevin Hazzard

American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America's First Paramedics (2022) by Kevin Hazzard is the inspirational story of the invention of street medicine, of medically-equipped ambulances, and of the profession of EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians). What made this history especially resonant for me is that this medicine-changing first initiative took place in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, home of playwright August Wilson, the jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams, the Negro League’s Pittsburgh Crawfords baseball team, and me in my early years.

The idea of creating an ambulance service in an area of town where the police and fire departments’ makeshift “ambulances” wouldn’t go to because of racism, was the brain-child of an acclaimed white Austrian immigrant, a Holocaust survivor, Dr. Peter Safar, an anesthesiologist. He was opposed by the other first responders, who had at most six hours of first-aid training and basically just gave a rough ride but no life-saving care to those in need, and by the local Pittsburgh government, particularly the white mayor Peter Flaherty, a nasty, racist piece of work.

Dr. Safar connected with the local activist non-profit Freedom House and they scraped together a way forward, recruited often uneducated, unemployed, sometimes unmotivated, but ultimately brilliant Black men from the community, and put them through the most rigorous medical and social training imaginable. Twenty-four men graduated. From their first calls during the uprising after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Freedom House service was a huge success from every point of view – except financially.

Their initial funding came from President Johnson’s job creation funds, but once Nixon came into office, that all dried up. A young white doctor, Nancy Caroline, took over the training of the medics and the running of the service with a fierce determination that kept them afloat until their betrayal by Pittsburgh’s politicians and police. She ended up writing the EMT textbook that would be used for many generations of students.

The author, a former paramedic himself, has researched this slice of progress and its roadblocks with remarkable detail, following certain of the players from start to end. It reads more like an action script, with valiant medics performing beyond their own expectations and the imaginations of all who were offended that Black people were spearheading an amazing new service.

For those with a connection to Pittsburgh, most especially the Hill District, you may feel, as I did, a special thrill to read of the familiar streets and institutions, to learn of yet another amazing moment in Pittsburgh’s hidden – or repressed - history. This non-fiction book has it all: challenges overcome, fascinating characters, heroes and villains, and adrenaline-fueled action from start to finish.

Postscript: In researching photographs, I discovered this 2023 Pittsburgh PBS program on the Freedom House ambulance service.