Everything That Would Be Copy for Nora Ephron Nowadays by Elyse Sommer

Everything That Would Be Copy for Nora Ephron Nowadays

by Elyse Sommer

Nora Ephron and her three sisters were raised by parents who were successful screenwriters. All  became writers, but it was Nora who most famously followed Mother Phoebe's maxim: "Everything is copy." As a journalist and essayist, Nora's combination of "on the mark" and often unflattering insights  with rib-tickling humor remains unmatched.  In her TV and film scripts, she managed to make the  heroines of her happily-ever-after plots smart and worth knowing.

Unfortunately, Ephron is no longer with us (she succumbed to cancer ten years ago).  Ah, but hold on, she is still very much with us -- courtesy of the still-available collections of her priceless scribblings    and iconic romantic movies. In fact,  I can't think of a better way to escape from the gloomy news cycle than to read or re-read her or to watch one of her romantic movies, which merged her bracing belief in  second chances with their shoutouts for women's rights to a place at the male-dominated table.

Donald Trump would likely be on Nora's list of people who would make good copy. Actually, this  would be a second take. Her 1989 "Famous First Words" article for Esquire cited Trump as different because he wanted more than anything to be famous and have people notice and talk about him.   Besides that desire for recognition, Ephron saw no signs of Trump's being intelligent. For sure, she'd  now want to address how his pursuit of fame had taken him to the White House and made his self-absorption dangerous.

Ephron was culturally very Jewish even if she wasn't observant, so the current rise in antisemitism  would surely be copy for her. She would undoubtedly have her own sharp-eyed take on Trump's being   the grandfather of three Orthodox Jewish grandchildren though not visibly involved in their religious     lives.

The Ephron movies that became super hits were not only produced and directed by men but also featured all-white casts. This included her three biggest hits --When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail   and Sleepless in Seattle. Undoubtedly, she would feel obliged to address that golden era's non-existing  diversity.

One recent example of an updated look at diversity is the latest Broadway production of Our Town, which does address the issue with color-blind casting by making George's parents black.    According to this revival's critics, such casting hasn't worked. And while it probably wouldn't work for  Nora, she might have written a play in which black as well as white people take center stage. Or, she    might track down playwright Bruce Norris, who very aptly did this in 2012 with Clybourne Park (see  my review in the Curtainup archives).  

Unlike Nora, her beloved sister Delia suffered from but survived the same cancer. True to Mother Phoebe's everything is copy maxim, Delia turned her cancer battle as well as her late-in-life happy love relationship into a play xLeft On Tenth, which is based on her autobiography and now on Broadway. Unlike the sisters' multi-cast movies, Left on Tenth is a small two-hander and fits the need  for smaller, cheaper-to-mount plays. However, despite the starry cast (Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher) and director (Susan Strohman), it remains to be  seen whether the Ephron name  will attract enough ticket buyers.

We'll never know whether Nora too would have turned her illness and happy third marriage into copy  to work as a stage play. Nor will we know what she'd have to say about two other plays (Vladimir and Yellow Face) now having  monthlong  runs in October and November. Yellow Face is a diversity-aware  replay that I reviewed during its 2007 Public Theater production (you can check it out in the Curtainup  archives). Vladimir is the first new political play set in  Putin's Russia.    

 Sad to say, Nora Ephron's witty voice was silenced way too soon.

Tracking the Changes of My Life Via a Survey of Constantly Changing Communicating Tools

Tracking the Changes of My Life Via a Survey of Constantly Changing Communicating Tools

By Elyse Sommer

My first writing tool was a fountain pen and the "platform" on which my scribblings landed was a sheet of paper.  

Given my terrible handwriting, learning to punch out my words on a typewriter was more than a welcome change. That change also paralleled pivotal life changes: College . . . my first experience as a working woman . . . marriage and moves to living spaces that accommodated children . . . becoming   my own boss as an agent for writers of romance magazine fiction.

 Of the various typewriters I owned, I especially loved a handsome portable red Olivetti. My very first computer, the Kaypro, was a big green box with slits at each side for floppy disks for saving text. The Kaypro lingers in my memory like a first love.

To be sure, even though pen and ink was their only available writing tool, authors like Jane Austen,  Charlotte Bronte and Leo Tolstoy managed to turn out many timeless novels. But while I've written no classic literary works, ever more sophisticated digital writing (and reading) tools have continued to parallel working and personal life changes for me.

In a way, this feature is a continuation of my last two blogspot features ( https://www.blogger.com).  Naturally, the amazing digital advances come with plenty of pros and cons, no matter what one's age.  

Major  pros 

My big personal pro of digital advances is that I was able to expand my theater coverage to areas     beyond New York. The friendships with my trusty reviewers was a major added plus in addition to   easily connecting with friends, relatives and co-workers anywhere. The digital age also brought  conveniences that made working, going to school and using the library easier through access to a   weightless shelf full of books available to you wherever you go.    

There's also the pro of more readily available news and entertainment and using that ever-smarter  phone to make and get calls as well as take photos. The not-so-golden aspects of getting older --weakened eyesight and hearing -- are offset by enlarged type on Kindle readers and being able to still   have conversations courtesy of hearing aids hooked into that do-anything smartphone.   

The inevitable cons

The cons are, of course, inevitable. Despite its convenience, email has turned from a stream of   interesting-to-open-and-answer mail to a flood that includes junk and is often dangerous to click on.   Then, there's the feeling of having to always be more meaningfully connected to friends and relatives.    This constantly online life has also shortened attention spans and hobbled efforts to write creatively and colorfully. 

Some successful writers -- like Stephen King, who no doubt can afford the most up-to-date and  expensive digital  tools -- complete at least their first drafts by hand. The manual input cuts down on  distractions and allows King and his fellow scribes to feel more intimately in touch with their   characters. John MacDonald, one of the mid-1900s most successful and prolific mystery writers,   abandoned pen and ink but pounded out his novels and short stories on typewriter after typewriter.  

Here's hoping that any new tools becoming available will help to make the world less beset with  worrisome world events and benefit the cultural zeitgeist. The many theater productions being mounted now and the rest of this year and through the following year support optimism and also the sense of  possibility -- the possibility that a few of these offerings will catch fire despite the high ticket prices  necessitated by the ever-rising cost of putting on a show.

A Peek at Titles Set to Light Up Theater Marquees

As usual, the lineup of shows includes established hits that will succeed again thanks to star-powered  casting. Naturally, that means at least one or two Shakespeare plays on or off Broadway. And sure   enough, King Lear, starring Kenneth Branagh, is sure to further enhance the 2019-established Shed's  reputation as one of New York's most prestigious cultural facilities. Given the real world's rise in anti-semitism, the East 13th Street Classic Stage's new look at The Merchant of Venice is likely to be  timely even without star performances.

The fairy-tale sourced musical Once Upon a Mattress proved to be a Shakespeare-like gold mine since its 1952 debut (starring Carol  Burnett) at the Variety Arts Theater on East 13th Street and later Broadway transfer.  Now, producers have opted to recapture that ticket-selling magic by casting Sutton Foster in the lead. So far, so good. The revival's brief run at Encores has led to an extended run at Broadway's Hudson Theater, starting August 20, 2025.

The open run of Mattress was preceded by a month-long run of The Last Five Years. This small  musical (two actors) also has been a hit thanks to its catchy Jason Robert Brown score and modest   production costs. However, it's never been on Broadway. Now, with the need for entertaining, cost- effective shows, The Last Five Years will finally make it to The Great White Way in 2025.

Another intriguing revival is David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. Undoubtedly, producers hope it  will restore Mamet's fading reputation (his last new play, The Penitent, was pretty much dead as it  opened). The theater is not yet set, but the starry cast, headed by Kieran Culkin, is.

More iconic hits headed back to Broadway include Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard as of   September 28 at the St. James. Lloyd Webber is also working on a new musical, so maybe another    super hit like Phantom is on the horizon. Other composers and playwrights have not spent the  pandemic years like Rip Van Winkle. Thus, Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang will be at the newly  renamed Todd Haimes Theatre from September 13 to November 24. Donald Margulies and Jeff  Butterworth have also scripted new works. Margulies's two-character Lunar Eclipse will have an open  run at Second Stage company's Off Broadway Tony Kiser Theater. Butterworth's The Hills of California is set for a 12-week run at Broadway's Broadhurst venue starting September 12th.

With audiences starved for a few hours of escape entertainment, A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical is likely to fill seats when it opens at Studio 54 on November 11th.

Though several small theaters have bitten the dust, other downtown gems like the Mint, the Vineyard,  and the Transport Group are soldiering on, presenting the kind of interesting work that has won them audiences.

To conclude, for sure there will be plenty of plays to make creative sense of the drama of our real world. Actually, a play about the Russian dictator whose attack on Ukraine is still raging is already on  the boards. It's entitled -- what  else? -- Vladimir and will debut at New York City Center Stage 1 on  West Street starting September 24 and open on October 17.  The play is set in Putin's first term. Sad to say, viewers will be seeing it with Putin in power for his fifth term and the focus on a reporter clutching to sanity would likely be doing so in prison.

 

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