Shouts from a Third Act

By Green Power, I mean good power. Green is the color of a traffic light that tells us to go. Green was the color of a guide called the “Green Book,” a publication that helped the “Negro traveler” avoid difficulties when searching for motels, food and gas in the Jim Crow South. It was published continuously for thirty years, beginning in 1936 and ending just after the Civil Rights and Voting Acts became law. The movie GREEN BOOK recently took home three Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture–Musical or Comedy, Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali) and Best Screenplay. It’s an audience crowd-pleaser based on a true story, a film that many critics have liked or loved but some have criticized for being cliché or predictable, even while acknowledging the exceptional performances of the two leads.

I saw the film with friends in a crowded theater, and we, too, left loving the film, enjoying a natural high from the performances, the music, and the story of an unlikely friendship. In these politically divisive times, it’s no small matter to leave a theater in good spirits–surrounded by strangers in good spirits–especially when the engine driving the story is fueled by racism and the tense race relations between whites and blacks in 1962, only a few years before our federal government passed two laws to try to right the injustices.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the film:

Dr. Don Shirley is a world-class black musician, and he’s in need of a chauffeur/bodyguard to drive him on an eight-week tour through parts of the Midwest and Deep South. Shirley is a star. Highly educated, he trained as a classical pianist but found fame as the head of a jazz trio. His record company has booked all the venues and rented him a new Cadillac, but Shirley gets to pick the driver, and he picks Tony Lip (real surname: Vallelonga). Tony is a bouncer at the Copacabana but needs temporary work while the nightclub is closed for renovations. Shirley lives alone in an elegant apartment above Carnegie Hall and speaks with precise diction. Tony lives in the Bronx with his wife and two sons, surrounded by a close-knit clan of Italian relatives. He’s a devoted family guy, but the kind of guy who throws out the drinking glasses used by the two black men who’ve come to fix something in his kitchen. (His wife had offered them lemonade.)

And so begins this Odd Couple road trip. The other two men in Shirley’s jazz trio are white, and they drive themselves in a separate car. They don’t need a “Green Book,” but Tony and “the Doc” do, especially when navigating the Deep South. There are incidents, dangers and indignities along the way, and the climactic scene near the end of the film takes place at a country club in Birmingham, Alabama, a city where singer Nat King Cole was attacked and injured in 1956 while performing at a concert. Tony learns this from the two white musicians while having dinner in the club’s dining room. Shirley tries to join them before his performance in that same room, but he is denied permission to eat with the white folks. This time, however, he may not turn the other cheek.

My mother was a big fan of Nat King Cole and his velvety voice. His Christmas Album is still one of my favorites, a CD that I play every year. Before seeing GREEN BOOK, I had no idea that Cole had been attacked by six white men while performing at a municipal auditorium in front of an all-white crowd of 4,000 people. According to the news reports, he didn’t finish the concert and came out to apologize. He also said, “I just came here to entertain you. I thought that was what you wanted. I was born in Alabama.” The crowd gave him a 10-minute standing ovation. He was treated by a doctor and later that night performed at the same auditorium in front of an all-black audience as planned, in observance of Birmingham’s segregation laws. Nat King Cole was 37 at the time and already a big star. That same year he became the first African-American to host a network variety show, but it was cancelled after one season because few sponsors were willing to be associated with a black entertainer. This is the green power of an artist. When Congress and the President finally signed the Civil Rights and Voting Acts into law, they must have been thinking in part about all the black singers, musicians and actors who’d been entertaining us so tirelessly and so well, and who, in turn, we’d been treating like second-class citizens or worse.

During their drive through the Deep South, Shirley and Tony Lip get stopped one night for being in violation of the “sundown law.” Tony ends up punching the cop and they’re thrown in jail. Shirley keeps demanding to be allowed to make his one phone call, which is his right, and eventually they let him. The men are released. Shirley had called the attorney general of the United States, who in turn called the Governor of the state that had thrown them in jail. Shirley knew Robert Kennedy because he’d performed twice at the White House. Tony’s son, Nick Vallelonga, was one of the film’s screenwriters. He’d grown up with that story and many more, and he wanted to share them. Nick told TIME Magazine that Shirley had encouraged him, but he’d told him to wait until after he was dead. Both Tony and Shirley died in 2013 within a few months of one another. They remained friends until the end. Nick has said that the road trip changed his father. Before the trip, his dad was prejudiced. After the trip, he taught his sons that all people are equal.

This is the power of art–in this case a film. This story has a feel good ending, but I dare say most people leave the theater thinking we still have a problem with race relations in this country. Why is that? And what can we do about it? Near the end of the film, Tony learns that it was Shirley’s decision to travel to the Deep South, not the record company’s. He asks one of the white men in the jazz trio why Shirley would embark on such a treacherous and painful venture, and this is what he was told:

“Genius is not enough. It takes courage to change people’s hearts.” –Oleg, the cellist in Don Shirley’s jazz trio

All is right with the world. At least while I’m sitting down. Not just sitting down, but sitting down watching THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL, the Amazon Prime comedy series that began streaming Season 2 in early December. As with many things in life, I arrived late to the party. Season 1 had already wowed audiences and critics, receiving two Golden Globes (in January) and eight Emmys (in September) before I tuned in in mid-December and ended up binge-watching both seasons. Not because I had time to spare, but because they were so irresistibly good. Because they hijacked my sometimes sinking spirits and flew them as high as the Empire State Building. From that lofty perch, a woman could face whatever twists and turns the great big looming New Year might hold. To say that it’s a comedy doesn’t adequately describe all the superlative aspects of the show. To say that stand-up comedian isn’t the kind of job that’s going to change lives is simply not true. Change is the driving force of this series. Change comes to Mrs. Maisel, and when it does, it comes to every single person in her orbit.

It’s 1958 and Miriam (Midge) Maisel has every reason to love her life as a Jewish American Princess. She’s happily married to Joel; they live in a spacious, to-die-for apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, only a few floors below her parents, who are often asked to watch–or have their maid watch–her two very young children whenever she’s out and about. Joel works in an office but wants to be a stand-up comic, and the couple frequently cabs it downtown so he can perform at The Gaslight Café. Ever-supportive Midge always brings a home-cooked brisket to bribe the manager for a better time slot for Joel. The only trouble in Paradise is that Joel is not that funny, not nearly as funny (nor as beautiful and charming) as his wife. And one night after he bombs at The Gaslight, he blames Midge and tells her their marriage is over–and that he’s been having an affair with his secretary. Distraught Midge ends up at The Gaslight to collect her brisket dish, but she starts drinking and ends up on stage. Not only is her riff on the state of her marriage very funny, but the things she says and does land her in jail. They also land her a manager, Susie Myerson, a woman who works at The Gaslight and always thought Joel was a loser.

Like I LOVE LUCY, the main character in THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL is an extremely likeable, very funny young woman. (Midge is only four years out of college; Lucy is slightly older, 30-something at the start.) Both shows are set in the 1950s, but of course I LOVE LUCY was actually filmed back then, from 1951-1957 as a half-hour comedy and then for three more seasons, until 1960, as one-hour specials. The biggest difference between Lucy Ricardo and Midge Maisel is that Lucy desperately wants to break into show business as a singer, dancer, actress (whatever works!) but has no real talent, whereas Midge is content with her privileged, stay-at-home-mom life (despite her intelligence and college degree) until Joel upends her lovely world.  Lucy is married to singer/bandleader Desi, which gives her some access to the club where he performs and people in the entertainment industry, but those of us who love Lucy love her for her funny failed attempts to succeed at things she’s not good at. When Joel leaves Midge and she discovers she loves doing stand-up, it’s clear she’s a natural, and we fall in love with her ability to take whatever life throws at her and make her audiences laugh. Most people would agree that Lucy still seems very funny today, but Mrs. Maisel is a trail blazer and a woman for our times. A MeToo kind of woman, but only in the sense, I can be just as funny as you guys up on stage.

Lucy’s adventures almost always involved her side-kick and best friend, Ethel Mertz, but it’s Susie Myerson who has Mrs. Maisel’s back. Not in a friendly sort of way–Susie doesn’t want that, at least not at first–but as a person who recognizes Midge’s talent and sees it as an opportunity to climb out of her miserable, hole-in-the-wall existence. Susie is laugh-out-loud funny in a crass way, and there’s great chemistry between beautifully dressed and coifed Midge and slovenly, frequently-mistaken-for-a-man Susie (played by Alex Borstein.) Both women won Emmys for their acting.

MRS. MAISEL has a much larger ensemble cast than LUCY did, and that’s one of its many joys. Midge’s parents are Abe and Rose Weissman (Tony Shalhoub; Marin Kinkle.) He’s a brilliant, tenured Columbia professor, and she’s a middle-aged version of Midge but much more serious and less spontaneous. However, she has a buried side to her–as a young woman, she studied in Paris–and Midge’s change in circumstances (unmarried) will prompt a mid-life crisis in Rose. Which will affect oh-so-serious Abe, who’s very impressed with his own brilliance. This changes him for the better, but Midge’s stand-up act will create problems for his career, although this might not be such a bad thing in the end. Or maybe it could be. At this point, we don’t know.

There’s also estranged husband Joel, who almost immediately regrets leaving Midge. Who wouldn’t? Not that he’s about to get her back. Which makes him face the fact he hates his job, so he quits. Not to pursue stand-up, he knows he’s no good. But he is good at other things, which he will discover in time. His parents are funny, too, although not intentionally so. Moishe Maisel (Kevin Pollak) owns a dress manufacturing company in the Garment District. He can be very cheap, but he needs to be. He’s saddled with some lazy, cheating employees and his wife Shirley (Caroline Aaron) is his bookkeeper, and a terrible one at that. 

Eventually there’s a new boyfriend for Midge, a doctor she meets at their two-month family vacation at a Jewish resort in the Catskills. Midge and Benjamin don’t ‘meet cute’ but eventually sparks do fly between them, and it’s fun to watch, not your average courtship. There are other wonderful regular characters, but I’m going to skip to two of my favorite occasionally-recurring characters. Midge meets Lenny Bruce, the real-live comic (played by Luke Kirby), when they’re both thrown in jail on the same night. They become friends and mutual admirers. Lenny is funny, smart, handsome and wounded, and his rapport with Midge is something special. So special that I kind of want them to get together (good thing he’s not in more scenes, if that’s not supposed to happen.) Sophie Lennon (Jane Lynch) is a rich, highly successful stand-up comic, and she’s about to give Midge a big break until Midge does something that offends her.

If you enjoy looking at pretty clothes, Midge’s outfits (and Rose’s, too) are one more reason to look forward to every episode. And some of the scenes are so beautifully choreographed that it’s reminiscent of watching a Broadway musical. Like when Midge and her mother are standing beside two racks of clothes, choosing which outfits to bring to the Catskills. Or when Joel and his best friend discuss their woes in a green-grass park at night. They’re both slightly drunk, each with a bucket of baseballs in front of him, and they toss up the balls in sync and try to bat them out of the park. And then there’s the great background music, different each episode, that takes us back to the 50s, sung by artists like Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Connie Francis, Perry Como, Dinah Washington, as well as other songs that mirror the action in the scenes, sometimes sung by more contemporary artists like Barbra Streisand and David Bowie. There’s so much to love about this show.

So, while THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL begins on a sad-note turning point–two people who really do love each other break up their marriage–the deed is now done, even if it was a mistake. How are they each going to move forward? It seems like a good question to ponder for the New Year, which will present each of us with our own unique challenges. Change comes to us all, just like it does to the characters in MRS. MAISEL.

If it’s not-so-good change, are we going to say, Yikes, let’s hide under the floorboards and try to avoid any more pain. Or, are we going to say, Let’s turn this hole in the floor into a magical portal leading to a sunnier, more color-filled future.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!