Arts&Entertainment
AIDS Grove Documentary on PBS on World Aids Day
Film
Dennis McMillan
The Grove documentary will be televised hundreds of times across the
PBS TV network on Dec. 1, honoring World AIDS Day with around
the clock broadcasts throughout the
country. More Americans have been
lost to AIDS than in all the U.S. wars
since 1900. Yet few know about the
National AIDS Memorial Grove, a
seven acre sanctuary hidden in San
Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and a
testament to lives lost at a time when
the stigma of AIDS forced many to
grieve in silence. As we mark the 30th
anniversary of the first AIDS cases in
the U.S., how do we remember a time
of unimaginable loss, and who owns
grief in the public sphere?
The Grove begins as an unlikely love
story during the gay community’s
coming-of-age in San Francisco before AIDS struck, and chronicles the
devastation that this plague and its
stigma wrought on the community.
Overwhelmed by unrelenting personal losses, several prominent California environmentalists began corralling their grief and transformed a
neglected parcel of land into a beautiful sanctuary.
This new PBS documentary shows
how a community in crisis found
healing and remembrance, and how
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By Dennis McMillan
The Grove will air on PBS on World AIDS Day, December 1. The documentary tells how the Bay Area community remembered and healed during the AIDS crisis.
the seeds of a few visionary environmentalists blossomed into something
larger than they could have imagined. But the fight to remember takes
an unexpected turn when stakeholders of the Grove seek broader public
recognition through an international design competition, and a battle
erupts about what constitutes an appropriate memorial to the AIDS epidemic, and what is the responsibility
of a national memorial.
In October 1996, Congress and the
President approved the National
AIDS Memorial Grove Act, proclaiming the Grove a nationally designated memorial, on par with only
a handful of other sites in the U.S.,
including Mount Rushmore and the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
ground-breaking app that connects
memorials to place and people. Cutting-edge mapping and augmented
reality technologies link memorial
tributes to “places where memories
live.” z will be available in the iTunes
App Store in early December during
World AIDS Awareness Month.
Emmy nominated filmmakers Andy
Abrahams Wilson (Under Our Skin)
and Tom Shepard (Scouts Honor). The
Grove was an official selection at Full
Frame and Hot Springs documentary
film festivals and was awarded “Best
Documentary Feature” at the Seattle
Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
In addition to the national broadcast,
an exciting interactive iPhone and
iPad application has been created to
complement the film: iMemorial is a
Co-presented by the Independent
Television Service and KQED-TV in
San Francisco, The Grove is produced
by Sundance award-winning and
Write to Dennis McMillan at BayTimesDennis@juno.com.
Tennessee Williams... Timeless Drama For Now
Theater
Lynn Ruth Miller
"All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of
God. Humanity is just a work in progress."
-Tennessee Williams
“Of all the great American playwrights, Tennessee Williams is our
most important,” said Jasson Minadakis, Artistic Director of Marin
Theatre Company and director of
The Glass Menagerie that opens November 29, at Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley. “Unlike those
who worked from the classical tra-
dition, Williams created his own
unique style.”
Minadakis is not the only director in
the Bay Area who has brought Williams’ work to our stages. Back in May,
Actor’s Theatre gave us a spectacular
version of A Streetcar Named Desire directed by founder and Artistic Director Christian Phillips and earlier in
the year, that theater presented Cat
On A Hot Tin Roof to sell-out houses.
Many of the plays the Phillips’ select
are products of the gay community
and for a very good reason “Gay writers are some of the best playwrights in
American Theater,” said Christian.
“And the largest identifiable group of
theatergoers is from that community.
Tennessee William’s plays span the
generations; their appeal is timeless. Barbara M ichelson-Harder
(Executive Director, Off Broadway
West Theatre Company) won a Best
Actress Award of her portrayal of
Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire and
she says, “Tennessee Williams is one
of the icons of American literature.
He has captured the pains and joys
of the Southern Woman. He understands her soul, her struggles, how,
caught by the constraints of her society, she tries to survive.”
Tennessee Williams died in 1983 after years of struggling with his sexual orientation and
alienation from the conservative south where he was born.
Indeed every woman, everywhere
can identify with Amanda, Maggie
and Blanche, all determined to keep
up appearances and still capture their
own brass ring. It is rare indeed that a
man can capture the essence of what
makes these women both vulnerable and incredibly strong. Williams’
characterizations are spot-on. There
is never a false note in his dialogue
and his characters are so real, you feel
you just saw them walking down the
street.
San Francisco Playhouse’s Bill English is reviving Williams' long forgotten holiday "serious comedy" Period of
Adjustment, this month as well (www.
sfplayhouse.org). The playwright
wrote this lighter piece while working
on three other scripts, including The
Night of the Iguana, which would mark
the end of his Broadway popularity.
Because this year is the centennial of
William’s birth, it is a perfect excuse
to revive his heart rendering work and
give new and younger audiences the
opportunity of relating to his eternal
themes. Like most of the characters
he creates, Williams was a troubled
soul and his compassion for those of
us in emotional pain resonates in all
of his plays. He received four Drama
Critic Circle Awards, two Pulitzer
Prizes and the Presidential Medal of
Freedom. Yet, critics attacked him
and Cardinal Spellman blacklisted
him. Still few would argue that he is
one of our all time greats.
In his production of The Glass Menagerie, Minadakis is creating a sense of
distance between Tom, the narrator
and the Tom we see interacting with
his mother and sister on stage. “The
narrator is considerably older than
Tom is,” said Minadakis. “We are
highlighting the fact that you what
you are seeing is from his memory.”
The play is set during The Depression and Minadakis never lets his audience forget that this is a family who
can barely survive. “When I read the
play, I see the tiny space that the family is crammed into…and Tom’s sense
of being trapped,” said Minadakis.
“Amanda is doing her best to make a
life for her daughter at the expense of
Tom. I think this situation happens
still: where one member of the family
has to give up his dream for another.”
Tennessee Williams died twenty eight
years ago in a hotel room cluttered
with empty wine bottles and bottles
of pills. He wrote about the alienation
he fought as a gay man born in the
conservative South. When the family
moved to St. Louis, it was the same as
moving to a different country for Williams, so different were the cultural
expectations and the social rules to
“fit in.” His was a tortured soul and
his gift was his ability to personify his
own suffering and give us insight into
our own. His plays are memorable because they are as real today as they
were when they were written. All hu!"#$%&$'()*#$*+,-(*./0
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