by Cynthia Wands

Au Lapin Agile, located in Montmarte

In October I saw something remarkable at the cabaret of The Agile Rabbit in Paris. (Forgive me, I just loved writing that.) My sister Susan and her husband Robert had gifted me a birthday adventure with them, and it was a dream come true: we stayed in an apartment near the Notre Dame Cathedral, ate fabulous meals, drank champagne, ate chocolate croissants, and saw dear friends. In short, it was a wonderful excursion, one I will treasure always.

But one of the most unexpected gifts, was the experience of watching the faces of the audience at a cabaret located in Montmarte, in a musical revue that was deeply touching.

We had researched some performance venues to visit while we in Paris. Perhaps we would go to the Palais Garnier, Opéra Bastille, (I’ve never been and someday I vow I will go to an opera there), or Les Folies Bergère, and then, just to bedevil Robert, we might go see the Moulin Rouge Paris show. Robert is back on Broadway right now in the musical Moulin Rouge, and had spent the last two years on the road with the show. But Robert had asked to see something more akin to a Parisian evening, and we kept looking.

And then I found a post online about Au Lapin Agile – The Agile Rabbit – a cabaret that has its own place in Paris history. We were looking for something authentic, not a Vegas style show, and this place sounded promising: “Au Lapin Agile is located in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris and hosts intimate, traditional French performances. The atmosphere is cozy, dimly lit, and focuses on audience participation and classic French “chansons”. The current show, “Songs, Music, Poetry,” features a variety of performers singing old French songs, Parisian melodies, and drinking songs, with the audience encouraged to sing along.” We were intrigued.

And here’s a bit of it’s history:

“The name means the agile rabbit, or Gill’s rabbit. It comes from the commercial ensign painted by the artist André Gill in the 1870’s showing a rabbit skipping out of a frying pan. The rabbit carries a bottle of wine, and is wearing a red neckerchief and sash. Because the rabbit (lapin) was painted by Gill, the sign – which quickly became famous in Montmartre – came to be known as the Lapin à Gill (Gill’s Rabbit). By repetition this became Lapin Agile (Agile Rabbit), this latter name stuck.”

Image by the artist André Gill

“In 1903 Frédéric Gérard known as Frédé became landlord of the property that would become Au Lapin Agile. Frédé was well known in Montmartre where he would go round the streets selling fish carried by his donkey. Frédé’s crow, goat, monkey or his pet white mice would sometimes also make an appearance at the cabaret.”

“He also had another café called the Zut where Picasso was a regular, so Picasso came to the Lapin Agile too. Frédé was musical and easy going. Just like Lapin à Gill (Gill’s Rabbit) he too wore a bandanna around his neck and sometimes on his head. We can catch a glimpse of Frédé (wearing clogs), in Picasso’s painting Au Lapin Agile, painted in 1905 and hung in the cabaret. The work can just be made out to the left of the sculpture of the Christ figure in the attached photograph.” (The photograph shows him singing and playing his guitar as an attentive bohemian audience looks on.)

And yes, this is the place that inspired the writer/performer/musician Steve Martin in 1993 to write the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile. The play features the characters of Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso, who meet at the Lapin Agile in in Montmartre in 1904. In the play, at the Lapin Agile, they have a lengthy debate about the value of genius and talent.

On a beautiful night in October, friends traveled from London and Ireland and Montreal to join us in Paris, and we were a chatty bunch, out on the town. So we gathered our group together, and headed off to what was billed as an authentic Paris cabaret.

We arrived, somewhat early, I realize now; and we loitered around the closed front doors, as the singers appeared, banged on the doors with vigorous knocking, and were let inside. Eventually, the doors opened and we were escorted upstairs, to a large open room with square tables, an assortment of chairs, and a piano that was stacked with sheet music. We ordered drinks, and watched as more and more people crowded into every available seat, the noise and laughter creating its own kind of music.

Once the room was very full, the lights changed, and a quietly elegant musician sat down at the piano, which was right next to us. Then several singers appeared. They all sat down at a large table in the center of the room; nodded at one another and the music began. They started singing together, with the pianist playing such incredible melodies, without looking at sheet music, but referencing a play list that was announced with a nod, or a pointed finger at one of the singers. They sang drinking songs, and duets, and beautiful solo melodies.

And it was fabulous. It was unexpected. And also crowded and emotional and intimate. The crowd seemed to know every song, and would, on command, join in. Our friend Jennifer speaks fluent French, and sang along with such spirit, that it seemed she had been there before. My sister Susan knows and speaks French, and she could nod and comprehend the nuance of the songs and lyrics. I, other hand, could only marvel at the expression and nuance of the language, gauging my reaction on what was meant by the faces of the audience.

And here’s the gift of the evening – the faces of the audience: uninhibited, engaged, positively charged for hearing and enjoying the music. It was such a committed crowd to the singing – you saw the nods and then the laughter, and the anticipation of knowing what comes next. You could feel the transmission of the emotions and the receipt and acknowledgement of the audience – and it seemed so much like gospel in a church. The call and response. The encouragement and acknowledgement, all done with such enjoyment and connection. I haven’t seen an audience this energized and connected in a long time. It spoke of community and history and shared perspective.

There was also the performance of a man, who was introduced as a 93 year old singer, who sang several songs, and the crowd LOVED him. And wanted more. I couldn’t help but think of our American idea of youthful charisma on stage, and the contrast with this venerated gentleman.

We left at 11:00pm, as we had an early morning the next day, and the cabaret was going on strong when we left – our seats were immediately claimed by the crowd.

But I left with the memory of the faces in the audience. The singers who could create such magic with their songs and such exquisite vulnerability with the audience.

If you ever have the chance to go to Paris, and you’re looking for a conduit to the real night life, consider this encouragement to visit Au Lapin Agile. I hope you have the kind of evening we experienced.

https://au-lapin-agile.com/en/accueil-english

by Cynthia Wands

I wanted to share the article in this week’s issue of THE NEW YORKER, it’s an interesting take on what is happening for women playwrights. It’s a bit of a read, but I found it very informative. Here it is:

In the late days of June, as the old theatre season was ebbing away and new-season announcements were streaming in, a shock hit New York. 

Playwrights Horizons, the birthplace of shows including the Pulitzer Prize winners “Sunday in the Park with George” and Annie Baker’s “The Flick,” announced its programming for 2025-26. It was, in some ways, a standard mix, including works by returning Playwrights artists (John J. Caswell, Milo Cramer, Shayok Misha Chowdhury) and several writers new to its stage (Jacob Perkins, Nazareth Hassan, the writing team of Jen Tullock and Frank Winters). These days, a six-show season is a surprisingly full slate; many theatres of similar size, crippled by rolling funding crises, have reduced their offerings. But something else stood out, too: in a notably diverse lineup (the majority of lead artists are queer, and two are nonbinary), there was only one woman writer, and she occupied half a slot.

Playwrights Horizons wasn’t alone. Other major theatres revealed their programming, some of which reverted to familiar patterns from a decade ago. The Roundabout Theatre will give one slot out of four to a woman, whose work will appear in the nonprofit’s Off Broadway space. The Manhattan Theatre Club, which, like Roundabout, uses both Broadway and Off Broadway theatres, will host two plays written by women of the four shows it has announced so far; however, in what’s become a common trend, both will be produced on its smaller, and thus less remunerative, Off Broadway stage. Classic Stage Company, under its artistic director, Jill Rafson, confirmed a season of three shows, all written and directed by white men. And the Williamstown Theatre Festival, enjoying its first summer under its new director, Jeremy O. Harris—the playwright who, in 2021, requested to withdraw his “Slave Play” from Center Theater Group when it presented a season with only one woman in it—has zero plays written by women among its 2025 productions.

In 2015, the Lillys, a group that honors women in the American theatre, published the Count, a national survey that assessed the demographic makeup of playwrights found on the country’s stages. As one of the group’s founders, Julia Jordan, puts it, “Statistics are our superpower.” For years, advocates had been protesting the underrepresentation of women playwrights, particularly women of color, but they were getting little traction. Some theatres pointed to the canon and shrugged helplessly—was it their fault that Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and Shakespeare were inconveniently male? Notably, when a theatre did program a woman, her play was relegated to the so-called “second space” or to a reading series. The Count gave theatres a way to see their place in the larger field. Individual programming choices—reflections of one theatre’s, or even one person’s, taste—looked rather different when placed in a national context.

Attention-getting methods like the Count—and, later, accountability projects such as “We See You White American Theater,” which published an extensive statement calling for the American theatre industry to address racial imbalance, as well as publishing hiring metrics on Instagram—pushed the field toward change. In 2023, the Lillys announced at its annual awards that, for the first time, New York theatres had achieved what the Lillys called “parity,” with the city’s playwriting lineups roughly paralleling the gender and racial distribution of the country at large. Was this victory? The Lillys began to think about disbanding; perhaps its work was done.

So when the new Playwrights season hit inboxes, Jordan called the company’s artistic director, Adam Greenfield, to ask what had happened. (Greenfield is a longtime friend of the Lillys; the group actually got its start at Playwrights, in 2010, back when Greenfield was still an associate artistic director, and the group holds its annual awards ceremony on the Playwrights main stage.) The Lillys told him that it wanted to convene an open meeting about what felt like a serious backsliding, and Greenfield instantly responded.

At the ensuing town hall, the Tony Award-winning playwright Lisa Kron said, “Adam acknowledged it as a ‘misstep,’ ” and noted that he quickly offered the Playwrights theatre for the occasion. Six days after the Playwrights announcement went public, a capacity crowd turned up to talk about representation and curation, and to try to imagine how to regain progress already fought for and, if temporarily, won. “We are here to mark that something seems to be amiss,” Kron said from the stage. “It feels emotional to us because this happened at Playwrights; it happened under Jeremy O. Harris. We feel these people to be our allies—they are our allies.” She went on. “Our issue is not with each other but with a system that considers one group central and the others as disposable.”

In the meeting, Jordan noted that the low representational numbers for women are difficult to square. By various measures (including the numbers of women graduating from degree programs in the arts), roughly two-thirds of the field’s writers are women—there is not, as artistic directors once argued, a pipeline issue. It seemed particularly bitter that, even as theatres made passionate arguments for diversity and new artistic directors took over from the old guard, certain habits were creeping back. Are we seeing a reflection of the country’s increasingly misogynist politics? Is there a kind of moral fatigue at play? “Last year, an all-male, all-white season didn’t exist,” Jordan said. “But this year . . . permission has been granted.”

At the meeting, Greenfield answered some questions from the crowd. “What does balance mean? In the past week, I’ve been thinking about that topic a lot.” Greenfield later wrote to me about his reasoning and about whether “misstep” actually describes his feeling about the season. “At the meeting, I wanted to immediately acknowledge that I should have prioritized women writers more in my decision-making. I see that, and I agree that it’s a shortcoming. In my efforts to uphold diversity and bring range to other aspects of the season, while staying mindful of budget constraints, I failed to make enough space for cisgendered and trans women,” he said. “But I would never call this slate of plays and artists a ‘misstep.’ I deeply love every one of the plays and artists programmed next season.”

Greenfield continued, “One of the many questions this meeting left me stewing over is, are we working from a shared definition? The definition of a ‘balanced’ season was vastly different five years ago than it is today, and it will be vastly different five years from now; it evolves alongside a global cultural conversation. Can any one season hold perfect balance from every person’s perspective?”

Rafson, from Classic Stage Company, wasn’t in attendance, but she told me later that she was aware of the paradox of announcing a season with no women in it while also strongly believing in inclusivity. “It would be wildly misleading to say I hadn’t noticed, and I feel confident that my colleagues were in a similar position. We know that it’s an issue when it’s happening,” she said. Rafson noted several factors that contributed to the situation: the brevity of a three-show season (“It is so hard to get a full representation of your theatre’s interests across so little work”) and the Classic Stage mission to reëxamine the canon (“I only have two commissions out right now. They are both to female writers doing adaptations of classics.”) “Don’t judge me by one season. Judge me by the breadth of work,” Rafson said. She takes comfort in the openness of the conversation around the issue. At least, she said, “we will not pretend that this is perfect and O.K.”

At the town hall, the question of what might happen next still seemed very much up in the air. One person suggested that artistic directors announce their next seasons early, weighting them more heavily toward women writers. One commenter levelled criticism at the Lillys for not studying another underrepresented group, disabled playwrights; others advocated for women writers over fifty. The playwright Chisa Hutchinson asked that the room stay “solution oriented” by reminding those present that women buy the majority of theatre tickets. “Show up! Buy some tickets!” she said.

And there did seem to be a certain amount of exhilaration, in fact, in the showing up itself. In the weeks after the meeting, Jordan said that she was actually feeling optimistic: “Our theatre community is so small and is so easily shamed!” She spoke warmly about Greenfield’s response, as well as Harris’s, who wrote to her immediately expressing his allyship. And—more than most—Jordan knows that this is a tide that can move back in the other direction. “There’s not that many theatres, maybe five hundred across the country, and, by and large, I would say 99.8% of them do not want to be assholes,” she said. “They don’t see themselves that way; they don’t want to be that way. Before, all we had to do was show them the mirror; once they looked in the mirror, they actually changed really quickly,” Jordan said. “So I just—I am extremely hopeful, and I feel like, if anybody can, we can make this correction of turning the ship.”

Perhaps the old strategy will work again: a public calling out, appeals to the well-meaning in power, careful application of both pressure and gratitude. But what’s worrying is how easy it was for the most conscientious among us to overlook such a huge swathe of the landscape. It’s true that it’s possible to program a diverse season—the Playwrights lineup shows a thrilling range of race, gender expression, sexuality, and artistic approach—and yet still almost ignore half the population. What is it that makes women so invisible? So many are standing right here. ♦

These last lines: “What is it that makes women so invisible? So many are standing right here.”

I feel this so deeply right now. Here’s to a changing culture.

Cynthia

“God’s Dollhouse”, mixed media, Cynthia Wands, 2020

by Cynthia Wands

Betty and Charlie Dolan, my paternal grandparents, around 1918

I recently traveled to Ireland and England, my first international travel in many years, and returned as a different person. I suspected that this journey would change me, but I was surprised at my intense internal struggle as I tried to adapt between me and my (travel sized) demons.

Thanks to the generosity of a dear friend, I was able to travel the Irish countryside, drink beer and listen to Irish music in pubs, and investigate leads to my mother’s family. “The Lost Dolans”, my grandfather’s family from Ireland, have always been a missing link in our ancestry, with many stories and wild claims that could never be tracked down. Now I was actually in the country of my mother’s family for the first time, and I hoped to find some connections.

Ancestry can be such an emotionally charged arena; there were hopes to find dissolved family ties, names that would refocus our Dolan legacy, and also, a discovery of a few fine country mansions and discretely wealthy family members. Dear Reader, I did not find these.

Instead I found that thousands of Dolans fled the island during The Great Hunger, a famine that decimated the island between1845-1852. The migration of over 2 million people by 1855 changed Ireland – and my grandfather’s family seems to have immigrated sometime, in phases, during the late 1800’s. I already knew that Charlie Dolan, my grandfather, was one of 13 children, had a twin sister, and was actually born in New York, not Ireland, and served in the United States Navy in WWI.

There was an evening in the Brazen Head Pub in Dublin, (I know, those Irish pub names!) where I was moaning about the fact that I was at a loss of finding my Dolan family roots.

Suddenly the fellow at the table right next us, overheard me, leans back and says to me, “I’m a Dolan.”

Yes, he was. Shaun Dolan is from Australia and he was in Ireland looking for his Dolan roots, and had researched a “Dolan’s Bar” in Clara, up in County Offaly. He had just been there, and suggested we asked for Dessie, Dessie Dolan, who owned the place. That’s the thing about Ireland: you can find a part of your family who went to Australia, and they’ll tell you the bar to go to so you can get more family information. So the next day we went to Dolan’s Bar in Clara.

So I did meet with Dessie Dolan and his beautiful wife, and I can tell you that they were wonderful people, and after a good 30 minutes of besieging them with questions about their Dolan family legacy, we agreed that a Charlie Dolan, an ancestor of his, could have been a distant ancestor of my grandfather. I’d like to go back to Dolan’s Bar in Clara; they have live music at night, and it seemed like a wonderful place. Dessie suggested we look for his brother’s place in Blacklion, County Cavan, at the Dugout, a pub where we could find more information about the Dolans. So we drove over to Blacklion and the Dugouot and- well. Here’s where we realized that we were playing whack-a-mole pub style. We could probably go to every pub in the midlands and find a connection to a Dolan family member.

And that was the end of my Dolan research. There are no church records, or civil register records of my branch of Dolan family that came from County Cork to Upstate New York. So we went on to have more adventures in Ireland, and I know I’ll meet up with more Dolans in my future travels.

And even though I didn’t find more of my Dolan family history, I did find some surprising lessons in adapting strategies. I found that having the courage of my curiosities to pursue the unknown, that I had to trust that sometimes, you just don’t find the answers you’re looking for, but you might find some different questions.

The next week, I was in London and I had a chance to see the Irish play “Juno and the Paycock”, by Sean O’Casey at the Gielgud Theatre. The production had mixed reviews, with the actor Mark Rylance portraying a “drunken fantasist” in a tragicomedy that features a tortured Irish family caught up in poverty and war. It was brutally funny, tragically bleak, fascinating and hard to watch.

Watching a play about an impoverished Irish family, having just attempted to find more information on my own impoverished Irish family, made for a strange dissonance. I could appreciate the performances and I was also far away, thinking of my Irish ancestors, and their struggle for survival.

In my writing I often think about molecular memory – the body memory – the platform in which our DNA dances to the tune of their biochemistry. The documented history of my Irish family remains beyond my grasp, but I carry them with me.

by Cynthia Wands

Nocturne, artwork by Eric Boyd

I’m sharing an image for this blog that my husband, Eric Boyd, created some years ago, and it’s a favorite of mine. The model for this beautiful image was my sister, Barbara. Eric’s legacy of artwork, in images and art glass pieces, reminds me of our evolving viewpoint, and how we frame our perception of the world.

The world has changed in profound ways in the last two weeks. I’m referring to politics, of course, and to Kamala Harris now running for president, and the newly energized Democratic Party. But I’m also referring to how I see the world, how it feels. I’m curious to see how this viewpoint will change how I write, how I grieve, how I experience theater, and how I look at character development again.

I’ve dreaded this election – the ongoing political maelstrom was depressing, infuriating, and my feeble efforts to become involved again as a pollster/volunteer seemed futile. Last year I stepped away from writing. I was finishing a script that I was initially enthused about, but writing with grief as a partner found me profoundly lost. So I just stopped writing.

In the past few months I’ve started to write again, this time working with a fiction writer’s group and it’s a very different dynamic – one I’m enjoying – although I refer to the feedback of the other writers as “puppy dogs and rattlesnakes”. (I miss my playwright comrades too.) This style of writing is a bit like wearing someone else’s clothes: they fit funny, look funny, and get a completely different response. I’m continually reminded about the crucial value of dialogue: words being offered and a change taking place because of that dynamic. And viewpoints being changed because of that interaction. Perhaps like politics this year.

Many years ago, I was cast in a movie , A LITTLE DEATH, based on THE DECAMERON, stories by Giovanni Boccaccio, written in response to the plague of 1348. I have mostly forgotten it, and misplaced most of the production stills from that project. But I recently saw that Netflix is showing a version of THE DECAMERON this month. And it reminded me of a moment that changed me.

At one point in the filming of A LITTLE DEATH, I asked the director why he was so focused on including a lit candle in the shot. It seemed all the effort to balance the light for this brief image was unnecessary. We were filming at Hammond Castle, and it was cold and damp and it was a thirteen hour day, and the crew was tired. That’s when he told me: “It’s all in the frame. How we see it, what we see, what we understand. It’s all in the frame.”

That was a moment of zen for me. I looked at this busy, crowded set where everyone just wanted to get to the next shot. And he was looking at one image, and what was revealed in the frame of the shot. How we frame what we see, how that tells us the story of what we include and focus on. It changed me.

I don’t know that the image of the lit candle created much meaning for the movie. I don’t even know if that image was included in the final version. But it was important to him. His artistry was trying to find – I don’t know – symbols? atmosphere? overtime? But I do know that he created beautiful images in the lightning and filming of this project; and I really admired what he created. (His name is Alan Ritsko, he was a Managing Director at NOVA, and he wrote the book, literally, on lighting for motion pictures: Lighting for location motion pictures: https://a.co/d/3Ec06Uu)

So – when Kamala Harris became the nominee for the Democrats – just two weeks ago – it changed how I saw the election. It changed how I saw where I belonged. So, it became for me, something that was “all in the frame”.

I managed to find two images of a young 19 year old Cynthia, from that film. I wish I remembered where I saved the rest of the production stills.

These still images from A LITTLE DEATH were taken by the photographer Francesca Morgante, who worked with Alan Ritsko on the set.

Even with all the chaos and noise in the political world,I’m going to try to find focus and meaning in the months ahead. I’m going to try to keep writing. I hope you do too.

by Cynthia Wands

A raw image (photograph) that I use for some of my digital artwork. I’ve taken cast away silverplate tea pots and added some twinkle, then I photograph the work, and use this image for a base in my photoshop images.

I’ve been following some of the stories of what AI (Artificial Intelligence) has become in the world of “creators”. Artwork, writing, architecture, design: AI is becoming a sought after tool to “enhance” creativity. And I’m also reminded of this issue as part of the actors strike – the AI generation of actors’ images to create new content without the actual participation of the actors themselves.

And some of the issues are profound, infuriating and bizarre.

There are schools and blogs and videos online on the use of AI to “enhance” story telling for screenwriters.

https://www.squibler.io/ai-script-writer

“Write and format better scripts faster. The AI script writer that helps you create compelling narratives — from ideation to final draft.”

And there is a myriad of articles on the value of “real writers” creating stories, rather than using algorithms.

But the most apparent visual representation of AI mechanisms I’ve seen is in the visual world ~ as a “digital artist”, I’ve seen the highjacking of my own artwork. My digital art images, which are available on a website, have been lifted and used in a myriad of unexpected ways. I’ve found my images for sale on other sites – and I’m powerless to control or stop the theft of these images. It’s changed the way I shared my artwork.

But I also belong to an online group that discusses AI Generate Images: mostly artists, some art directors, curators and the assorted grumpy scholar. Here is an insider comment, about the use and caliber of hiring “AI Prompters”: staff who attempt to create images by pulling images from social media through prompts to use existing found images.

Posting this on behalf of a member who would like to remain anonymous:

I’m an art director and supervisor for a large studio. The studio heads had the bright idea before I started to hire prompters. Several bros were brought onto the film project. I absolutely hated myself for not quitting on the spot but stuck with it because it’s mercenary out there. Have a family to feed etc. I decided to use this time wisely. Treat them as I would any artist I had hired. First round of pictures of a sweeping Ariel forest landscape comes through and it’s not bad. They submit a ton of work and one or two of the 40 are ok. Nearly on brief. So first round feedback goes through and I tell them about the perspective mistakes, colour changes I want, layers that any matte painting would be split into. Within a day I get 5 variants. Not changes to the ones I wanted but variations. Again. Benefit of the doubt I give them another round of feedback making it clear. Next day it’s worse. I sit there and patiently paint over, even explaining the steps I would take as a painter. They don’t do it, anomalies start appearing when I say I want to keep the exact image but with changes. They can’t. They simply don’t have the eye to see the basic mistakes so the Ai starts to over compensate. We get people starting to appear in the images. These are obviously holiday snaps.

“Remove the people”

“What would you like them changed to?”

“… grass. I just don’t want them there”

They can’t do it. The one that can actually use photoshop hasn’t developed the eye to see his mistakes, ends up getting angry at me for not understanding he can’t make specific changes. The girl whose background was a little photography has given me 40 progressively worse images with wilder mistakes every time. This is 4 days into the project.

I’m both pissed about the waste, but elated seeing ai fall at the first hurdle. It’s not even that the images are unusable, the people making them have no eye for what’s wrong, no thicker skin for constructive criticism and feedback, no basic artistic training in perspective and functionality in what they’re making.

Yes the hype is going to pump more money into this. They won’t go anywhere for a while. But this has been such a glowing perfect moment of watching the fundamental part fail in the face of the most simple tasks. All were fired and the company no longer accepts Ai prompters as applicants. Your training as an artist will always be the most important part of this process and it is invaluable. I hope this post gives you a boost in a dark time.

Anonymous Author on generating AI

An image that accompanied this online article:

The article and the image provoked me to think about the value and cost of the artist to create – the emotional, psychological, spiritual, cultural cost. What we bring to the table. What we leave behind.

As a writer, and digital artist, who uses complicated software, and social media, and resources that are linked to the access of ideas and images and conversations (like this one), I’m very invested in the identity and core value of what an artist is. I’ll be watching the world’s imagery to see if AI is the immoral monster, or a seemingly magical assist to our creative life.

A finished image, using raw images, brewed around in Photoshop and Illustrator: Tiger Tea, by Cynthia Wands, 2022.

by Cynthia Wands

The program of ADRIFT A WAYWARD MEDIEVAL FOLLY by Happenstance Theater at Theater 59 in December 2023. It wouldn’t be the Middle Ages without a hellmouth, demons, and angels.

This past December I traveled to New York to spend the holiday with family, see some theatre, and pause the grief that I’m living in. I had a wonderful visit, was enveloped in love and care with my family, saw some marvelous plays, and the grief came along as an uninvited companion.

Grief doesn’t take kindly to holidays.

Actually, let me rewrite that ~ grief becomes an especially noisy companion at holidays. It has a running dialogue of every new experience: commenting on how it feels/knows/judges anything new or unexpected. Grief talks.

It was especially evident when my sister took me to see an unknown play called ADRIFT at Theater 59 produced by the Happenstance Theater. I wasn’t at all familiar with this theater group and their mission for the show was intriguing. Take a look:

The audience was packed, and brought back the memories of performing in small theaters, the intimacy of seeing/feeling/breathing together (especially in days of Covid). You could feel the buzz as people took off their coats, crowded together in their seats, and the music and lights changed.

It was magical. I love being surprised – and there were some epic surprises in this production. Based on the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, we watched vignettes on death, The Oracle Who Answers Your Questions, and regeneration. The puppets, the mime work of the artists onstage, and the design elements were wonderful. Portions of it reminded me of the tableau vivant entertainments of the 19th century; some of it reminded me of the Renaissance Fairs of San Francisco back in the 1980’s, and some of it was just uniquely its own. More of a pastiche of skits than a script, the dialogue was sparse, but the imagery was inspired.

There were moments in the production that portrayed death or loss that were hard to experience (that voice of grief reminded me), but several weeks later, I’m still remembering the effects of this show and its artistry.

It was a wonderful visit to see this version of black box theater, and to be part of an audience again.

Theater 59 in New York City

by Cynthia Wands

Yes. Due to the $1 billion dollar market for the BARBIE movie, Mattel has decided to issue a “limited edition” of the Weird Barbie that was featured in the movie. You have until August 15 to pre-order your $50 Weird Barbie.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/07/business/mattel-weird-barbie-doll-buy/index.html?utm_term=link&utm_content=2023-08-08T08%3A00%3A45&utm_source=fbCNN&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR35bvpnL4knk7Io0Hqu1YRvA8-MB6U17zQSRgUQ7PcyqDV7Q7yJF0_51Fo

CNN  — 

Some might say Weird Barbies are made, not sold. Mattel, however, begs to differ.

The toy company behind the iconic Barbie brand has announced a signature doll modeled after Kate McKinnon’s character from Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster “Barbie.” In the movie, McKinnon’s character helps send Margot Robbie’s Barbie on her journey.

“Barbie” is produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, which is owned by CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.

The limited-edition toy features a hot pink outfit almost identical to the one McKinnon wears in the movie, complete with markings on her face and oddly cut and colored hair “to emulate a doll that’s been played with just a little too much,” Mattel said in the product description.

The doll is one of seven products in an expanded collection stemming from the billion-dollar hit movie, including various Barbie and Ken dolls modeling outfits they wore on-screen and a Hot Wheels corvette set.

“With the latest editions to the collection, we are offering even more ways for fans to immerse themselves in Barbie Land and celebrate the characters and stories they see on screen,” Lisa McKnight, Mattel’s executive vice president and chief brand officer, said in a statement. “Barbie continues to be the cultural event of the summer, and as we chart Mattel’s path forward, she will continue to serve as an icon of empowerment and inspiration for generations to come.”

Weird Barbie is available to pre-order on Mattel’s website for $50 until August 18 and is expected to be shipped by the end of May 2024.

By Eva Rothenberg, CNN
Published 8:34 PM EDT, Mon August 7, 2023

I haven’t been to a movie theatre in over three years, and this month, dear friends convinced me to go see it. It was a shock to the nervous system to encounter a movie theatre again. After being masked everywhere, and not being in an indoor event since 2019, the experience had a strange dream-like tone. It was a matinee, and it was packed, and I was a stranger in a strange land.

I read some commentary about/protesting the BARBIE movie – and I had no desire to see it. But my husband Eric had died in June, and I was stumbling through the fog of grief, and my friends were helping me ease out of the house. (I did not want to ease out of the house.) I was not a fan of the Barbie doll, although I do remember one Christmas where Santa gifted me a Barbie. I thought she was very inflexible and pointy. Also I lost her shoes right away. And she wasn’t much fun to play with, as her facial expression seemed inaccessible to me. The Weird Barbie character in the movie seemed fun, if somewhat contrived, as if one of my hippie girlfriends from the 1970s showed up at a fashion show.

But – it was amazing to witness the pink girl power in the audience. There was loud cheers for this story about a doll that wants to be a human. And there was laughing and hooting and clapping in the audience, which was fun, but also perplexed me. I appreciated the cheeky performances, and even the young men sitting next to us were getting all worked up about Ken’s identity crisis. I think they might have enjoyed the movie more than I did.

It was a great experience to actually leave the house and take the risk to go see something. After living the life of a 24/7 caretaker for the last few years, I’d lost my link to live performances. (I may work up the nerve to so see some theatre in October – still working through some issues about this transition.) And it was great to see a successful movie directed by a woman, with a smattering of jibes about beauty, identity and patriarchy. (Although – it did remind me of eating cotton candy at the circus – that strange sensation of eating a sticky sugary hair-like confection in vibrant colors .)

What surprised me, and what I most appreciate, is that feeling of women in the audience, hearing a story that vibrates with them – even if it doesn’t vibrate with me – and the delight in hearing people laugh again.