January 27–February 2, 2017

C5@EpochArts

TheEpochTimes.com/EpochArts

Rhymes Remain Fertile Ground for HumoristsBy Evan Mantyk

From Mother Goose to Dr. Seuss, rhyming poetry has induced laughter in children for century after century. The enchantment of rhyme, while considered somewhat passé now among modernists, loses none of its magic on the richly imaginative minds of the young and can still make an adult or two chuckle. Here, Nivedita Karthik, a graduate in integrated immunology from the University of Oxford, offers two Irish limericks that show that rhyming humor can work for the old as well as the young today, just as well as it did in the past.

Two LimericksBy Nivedita Karthik

There once was a very young ratwho thought himself a big, black bat.So, he leapt off a chairand flew through the airStraight into the jaws of a cat!

The gown and the date are set,caterers and florists I’ve met.The hall has been booked,no detail overlookedWait ... I don’t have a groom just yet!

But, beyond these short rhymes, there is a great deal of potential in rhyme as a source of humor beyond what writ-ers today generally imagine. Observe, for instance, Edmond Rostand’s 1897 work “Cyrano de Bergerac,” which is writ-ten entirely in rhyming verse and hilariously pits the unu-sually large-nosed titular French protagonist against him-self and fate. (The 1990 French film adaptation with Gerard Depardieu is recommended.) Some of this ingenious rhym-ing potential can be seen here in Joshua Lefkowitz’s poem. Lefkowitz was a finalist for the 2014 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize and has also recorded humor pieces for NPR’s “All Things Considered” and BBC’s “Americana.”

Insomnia By Joshua Lefkowitz

When I struggle for sleep,I dust off a classicand try counting sheep:

Trouble is, my sheep show off,they leap like Olympiansover their feeding trough—

They soar through the air,blending into the clouds,pirouette, land back down, where

the rest of the animals wait,giving scores, mostly tens,‘cept the East German pigs, 9.8.

It’s all rather amusing, onlyI’m still awake, while you dozeby my side, and thus lonely

I nudge you and whisper, “Hi,”to the which you groan, and reply,“If you don’t shut up, you will die.”

Here, the rhymes work for adults better than for children, and the rhyming elevates what would otherwise be only a well-written soliloquy to the level of art.

While one is humorously rhyming, there is also the poten-tial to make serious social statements in unique ways. This is an example of such by British poet and motivational expert James Sale:

Obi-Wan Bin Laden RIPBy James Sale

Let’s remember what God wants:Killing people’s never right,So Obi-Wan Bin Laden thenCannot be a Jedi knight.

To make folks free you face them straight—Backstabbing lacks God’s protocol;So Obi-Wan Bin Laden looksLike something that has lost its soul.

He’s hard to find on Dagobah,Afghanistan or Alderon,Where Obi-Wan Bin Laden hides—But surely he’ll slip in the sun.

Then see his shade evaporate,His loud excuses miss their course:As Obi-Wan Bin Laden triesEscaping but without the Force.

The use of “Star Wars” metaphors to talk about a mass mur-dering terrorist may seem, if not humorous, then strange at first, but when you think about it, it makes complete sense. How many troubled youth being raised today are the terror-ists of tomorrow and are dangerously confusing good and evil? Thus, all at once, the poem delivers a necessary social message, a humorous satire, and effective rhyming poetry.

All poems used with permission of the poets

Evan Mantyk is president of the Society of Classical Poets (ClassicalPoets.org). He teaches literature and history in upstate New York. You may send your comments, feedback, and, of course, poetry to Submissions@ClassicalPoets.org

Poetry

Plastic in the Pacific Kills Birds and We’re All ResponsibleBy Mark Jackson | Epoch Times Staff

EW YORK—For the second time this week, I’ve seen a black-box theater/ one-man show, featuring a singular,

titanic, wrecking-crew of a howling, flail-ing, roaring, crawling, running around, climbing up stuff, swinging from the raft-ers, sweating, moaning, copious-Cornish-accented-cursing-creature of showbiz.

That’s “Albatross,” an interpretation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” And here we have the titular Mariner, traveling around, telling his tale, in real time.

The play co-written by Benjamin Evett (also performing) and Matthew Spangler, and directed by Rick Lombardo, is running for one month exactly, starting Jan. 12 at 59E59 Theaters.

Setting the StageFrom a distance, Evett looks like a curly-haired, Falstaffian version of Nick Nolte circa 15 years ago, and all I can say is this: We should all be so lucky to have this man’s energy, at his age. I felt winded after five minutes. 2017 resolution: work on my cardio.

Setting the stage is what he does, literally, for the first 10 minutes: breaking the fourth wall, walking around, and rigging carabi-ners to what look like giant rags but, when hoisted by stage rope and pulley, trans-form into a series of ship sails. These func-tion as the backdrop/screen upon which to project fire, inclement weather, and other more impressionist structures and swirl-ing movement. It’s good stage business, and produces a nice effect.

The Mariner makes lots of fun of the audi-ence (“You Upper Eastsiders!”) in the com-media dell’arte tradition, in which the trave-ling troupe would arrive in town early and hang out, eavesdropping on local gossip and later working choice tidbits into that even-ing’s show. Which goes hand in hand with that other tradition of theater: theatergoers willingly taking verbal abuse from actors for things they know deep down they should feel shame about, but refuse to let surface into consciousness outside the confines of the church-of-theater.

There follows a fair amount of neck-cran-ing and talking to “The Almighty,” a la Ste-phen the Irishman in “Braveheart” (“The Spirits say I’m swearin’ too much. But ... you know, I’m a sailor!”). And then he gets into his story: how he came to be ... The Mariner. From here, he sets the stage more broadly; up the ladder he goes to survey the seaport town for us—the coming and going of tobacco, silk, coffee, and the middle passage ships with their cargo of humans.

Telling His TaleTurns out, he was duped, this Mariner. He was out drinking at the Drunken Duck, leaving his chronically inebriated wife to tend to their sick-unto-death son, when a false, Wormtongue-type associate, Roger, “put opium in me pint.” Next thing he knew, there he was, sailing down to South America on the deck of Black Dog’s privateer frigate (often piratical)—as the navigator.

“You go out for one drink! [Then a stage whisper aside: “Shut up!” (he’d earlier related to the audience that he’d had four drinks)] And see what happens?!”

Down the ship goes to the Falkland Islands; Black Dog has a side gig collecting animals, and wants some penguins. There’s a storm! There’s some pirating! The crew cut a cap-tured passenger with knives and seal him in a container, screaming, with rats and roaches. There’s also the biting off of body parts, by crazed sailors.

“Is it too much?” the Mariner hollers at the audience of Upper Eastsiders. “Yes!” a few coiffed ladies erupt instinctively. It is, in fact, all a bit much.

But the Mariner carries on, and now we’re in the stages of the Rime-frost covered ship, gliding ghost-like through mist and snow; the storied albatross, that spirit guide, arrives. Then, deadly, baking sun! And the

Theater Review

Benjamin Evett as the Ancient Mariner in the oneman show “Albatross.”

ALL PHOTOS BY CAROLE-GOLDFARB

horrid, black ship approach-eth; hellish ser-pents crawl upon the sea, and soon there’s a game of dice between the skeletal Death and the ghastly “Life-in-Death,” that pal-lid, infernally glaring maiden, as they vie for the Mariner’s soul.

Evett’s down to his sweaty long johns now. (I said he was Falstaffian but he’s actually somewhat buff without the bulky clothes—turns out it’s more a Falstaffian demeanor.) He’s talking about drinking the last of the rum, and then drinking an ever-darkening series of urine cups, to survive. Also gnaw-ing on live and raw penguins. “Arrrrr!” he intones. “Gross!” the UES ladies shudder.

So why are Death and Life-in-Death after the Mariner? He’d wantonly shot the alba-tross (and trodden upon its head, accom-panied by scrunching sounds). Is it too much? Yes! But as we reach the final stages, the pure lines of Coleridge’s poem start to come through more often, unsullied, like a stream of fresh water washing away the fouler embellishments. Kind of a relief.

The Mariner laments to the spirits, “What did I do? I killed a bird!” Yes, but the spir-its loved the albatross, who loved this man. And now there’s beaucoup karma to pay.

Play’s CruxThere’s more to the tale, about arriv-

ing home to a house burnt to cinders and being cursed unto the end of his days to walk the earth and tell his story to those who are in need of hearing it.

But the main update to the story, besides the made-up, “in the words of the actual Ancient Mariner” perspective, is this one thing: We humans are killing albatrosses as we speak. And there will be karma to pay.

Evett has converted this story, best known to children as the haunting, exquisite 1876 illustrations of Gustave Dore, into an envi-ronmental tale, and he has expanded it to encompass all of humanity.

He laments our wanton abuse of the planet—resulting in Exxon-crude covered pelicans, dead coral reefs, sea turtles with Budweiser six-pack rings squeezing their guts, and albatross chicks ingesting bright blue bottle caps. It has all ultimately led to the fulfillment of Bob Dylan’s prescient 1962 lyric, “I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans.” That’s the message. A tremendous,

if obvious, message.Like “House of the Rising Sun,” the

Mariner warns, “Don’t do what I have done.” “The Rime” is a cautionary tale and a call to take the enlightenment

path, much like the Norwegian folk epic “The Dream Song of Olaf Asteson.”

Do you want to go hear this message handed to you, heavily? Heavy-hand-

edly? Are you masochistically jones-ing for the theater equivalent of boxed ears? Then come and sit in the front row. Even taking a back row seat (where I sat) will result in a shortness of breath and chest ache.

As mentioned, Evett’s got gale-force power; it’s a bit much for a small theater. Black Dog in a black box? Biting off pieces of some-one’s shoulder, swallowing them, and then blowing chunks? “Is it too much?” You be the judge.

But Evett “knows his song well before he starts singing”: We should not throw our trash in the world’s oceans! Come feel the shame you should! Tell it, Ben!

The spirits loved the bird, who loved this man. And now there’s beaucoup karma to pay.

N

‘Albatross’59E59 Theaters 59 E. 59th St., Second Floor

Tickets 212-279-4200 or 59E59.org

Running Time 1 hour, 15 minutes (no intermission)

Closes Feb. 12