TRIPLE TREAT

My love affair with Robin Hobb continues!

All three volumes in each of her trilogies are so closely linked with each other, I decided to stop reviewing the individual books, and wait until I finished all three. Reviewing one book at a time would be like writing a film review after only seeing one third of the movie!

So now, looking back with hindsight, I can say there are major changes for Fitz as the first book in the Tawny Man Trilogy, Fool’s Errand, begins, 15 years after the end of the Farseer Trilogy. At 35, Fitz is in retirement on a little plot of land, out of the limelight of Buckkeep, raising Hap, an orphan boy brought to him by itinerant minstrel and occasional bedmate, Starling. (I've never entirely trusted Starling!)

Soon enough, both former mentor, Chade, and the Fool, orbit back into his life, dragging Fitz into more courtly intrigue around the disappearance of Prince Dutiful — not Fitz's son, not exactly, but child of his body. (It's complicated.) Meanwhile, back in the realm, the entire Liveship Traders Trilogy has occurred in the intervening years, which will begin to impact the story of Fitz and Fool as this trilogy progresses.

Also of note, Fool is the tawny man in question, now passing himself off as the idle aristocrat Lord Golden, his coloring deepening, book by book, as his adventures are imprinted on his physical self and his ever-evolving psyche. Salted into the quest/adventure story arc is the wry comedy of Fitz (now calling himself Tom Badgerlock) passing himself off as Lord Golden's manservant as they surreptitiously search for Dutiful.

For all the political intrigue between the outcast Witted and the elite Skilled, and the lovely, heartbreaking exit of one of the series' most adored characters, it remains the evolution of Fitz's relationship with Fool that powers this endlessly compelling series.

Golden Fool is very much the second act in the Tawny Man Trilogy — all the plots are still simmering! And smack in the middle of it, a swirling eddy of characters and backstory from the Liveship Traders Trilogy begins to well up and seep into the story of Fitz and Fool. I was so excited! One suspicion confirmed, some questions answered, and even more intriguing questions raised. The dynamic between Fitz and Fool just keeps getting more intense —irresistibly so!

I read the Liveship books out of order, before I even started the first Fitz/Fool trilogy (Farseer), which I don't think was particularly detrimental to my enjoyment of either series. I was able to piece together a few key elements of the larger story as I went along.

But I am so glad I read the Liveship books before I started the Tawny Man Trilogy! It not only enriches the experience of reading each individual book, it sweeps the reader up in the thrilling scope of Hobb's imagination. Bit by tasty bit, the enormity of her Big Picture begins to take shape.

Okay, maybe Fool’s Fate, the third book in the Tawny Man Trilogy, is not the best book to read on a cold winter night, with our heroes slogging through impeccably rendered snow and ice across a glacier. Brrr . . .

 But in the last two paragraphs of Chapter 29, you will find my favorite single scene of the whole series so far. I dare not provide any context, leaving it for intrepid readers to discover on their own.

Suffice it to say that from the depths of insurmountable despair, the reluctant Changer engineers the Best. Change. Ever. Damn the Prophecy. Damn Fate. Damn whatever may come next.

This is what love looks like. They are so pack!

SEA CHANGE

Heads up, Shakespeare fans! Our own Santa Cruz Shakespeare has announced its lineup for this year's summer festival season — and since it revolves around two of my favorite Shakespeare plays, I could not be more excited!

As in recent summers past, the season opener will be a non-Shakespearean offering, in this case A Flea In Her Ear, the classic French farce by Georges Feydeau, from the turn of the last century. This story of marital mistrust, miscommunication, mistaken identities and reconciliation gets a spanking new adaptation by David Ives (whose adaptation of Moliere's The Liar, back in 2015, was one of the funniest productions in the company's history).

Next up will be Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's lively comedy of romantic complications when a young woman shipwrecked on a foreign shore disguises herself as a young man to seek employment. Full of swift banter, unrequited passion, even a little swordplay, it's an adroit comedy of love, gender, and identity that never goes out of style.

Cut-out poster, Pratt Institute, 2012

But I may be most excited about The Tempest, Shakespeare's last play, and the grand finale of his career, a gorgeous feast of magic and redemption. Duke Prospero, the sorcerer, is usurped by his conniving brother and exiled with his daughter to an uncharted island. With help of his spirit familiars, he causes a shipwreck that delivers his enemies into his power for a day of retribution, romance, and — ultimately — reconciliation.

The Tempest is categorized as a romance (what we might call in modern parlance magic realism), depending on magic, spells, and sorcery to advance the plot. With its scheming royals, drunken clowns, young lovers, antic, otherworldly spirits, disappearing banquets, and exuberant pageantry (as well as its undercurrent of slavery vs. freedom), its effects can be as subtle or spectacular as the playmakers can dream up. 

One previous production of the play (in the company's former incarnation as Shakespeare Santa Cruz) used Balinese shadow puppets and masks to convey the magical elements. In another, director Danny Scheie riffed on Gilligan's Island, with uneven results, but also included a magnificent Ariel, Prospero's chief magical minion, soaring above the action on a trapeze.

The Tempest a la Balinese

A more recent production, set in the Art Noveau era, emphasized the story's humanism, the burgeoning cult of Nature, and the merging of spiritualism with the supernatural.

This will be the company's fourth production of The Tempest, and its first-ever helmed by Artistic Director Mike Ryan, making his debut in the director's chair. I can't wait! Especially since my next novel (under construction as we speak) imagines the further adventures of Prospero's daughter!

The recurring themes of shipwreck and redemption in this year's playlist prompts Ryan to adopt Sea Change as this season's unofficial title. As he explains it, “All of our 2020 plays center around someone (or someones) who are shipwrecked, sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally, and sometimes in both ways. These stories ask questions about how we find our way past disaster, impotence, and emotional stagnancy to find fertile ground in renewed joy, love, and hope.”

Finding our way past disaster through love and hope could not be more timely, in our current cultural climate. But, here, I'll let Mike tell you all about it himself!

Meanwhile — full steam ahead!

ADVENTURES IN DOLLYWOOD

Hey folks, it’s all over but the shouting (and the squeals of gobsmacked surprise) at this year’s Oscars.

Who knew that Parasite would sweep four of the six categories it was nominated in, including Best Director (okay, I knew that one!), Best Picture and Best International Film (quite a double-header), as well as Best Original Screenplay. (It only lost in the Production Design and Editing categories.)

Anyway, I’m awarding myself a half point for suggesting Parasite was the likeliest spoiler in the Original Screenplay category, bringing my total to 7 1/2 correct predictions out of 10.

But even though the hoopla has died down a bit, we all know it wouldn’t be the Oscars without  — The Return of the (Dreaded) Oscar Barbies!

The Best Actress nominees in period costumes are always my favorites, so this year I decided not to even fool around with the nominees in boring modern dress.  Renee Zellweger’s mid-60s Judy (as in Garland) is just retro enough to make the cut. Besides, I knew she was going to win, so I positioned her snuggling up to the man in gold himself.

She’s flanked by Saoirse Ronan, as budding writer, Jo, in Little Women, and Cynthia Erivo as intrepid Civil War slave liberator, Harriet.

And, yes, it’s all about the props!

ONCE UPON A TIME

Whose Hollywood fairy tales will come true at this year's Academy Awards?

You want Oscar predictions? How's this: when the Academy Awards are handed out this Sunday, winners in the top categories, excluding Actress nominees, will be white men.

Sure, some random female co-producers might swarm up in the production team accepting the Best Picture award. But (aside from Amy Pascal, solo producer of Little Women) you have to rappel down to the Screenplay categories before you even find another female nominee. And if not for this year's Korean phenom, Parasite, there would be few top nominees at all of any ethnicity other than Caucasian male.

(Just take a look at the posters for this year’s nine Best Picture nominees. Four feature only white men, two contain subordinate women alongside the men, and only two — Little Women (natch) and Marriage Story — feature women prominently. Only the Parasite poster bucks the trend, with three non-Caucasian men and two women — although one of the latter, appears to be, um, dead.)

Movies are being made from more diverse viewpoints — Us, Harriet, The Farewell, Hustlers, Waves — but the Academy has still hasn't gotten the memo. Can #OscarsSoWhiteMale be far off?

Of the movies that are anointed with Oscar nominations this year, the most hotly contested races are in the top two categories, Best Picture and Best Director. By contrast, all four acting winners are pretty much locked-in, after unanimous victories at all the other awards galas, so let's start with those.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS Laura Dern, Marriage Story. Dern has a lifetime of sterling film and TV credits, she plays a tough LA divorce lawyer (a character familiar to most Academy members), and is likely to score her first win with this, her third Oscar nomination.

SUPPORTING ACTOR Brad Pitt, Once Upon A Time . . . In Hollywood. Who doesn't want to see Pitt deliver another one of the droll acceptance speeches he's already given for this performance in this awards season?

BEST ACTRESS Renee Zellweger, Judy. Her gutsy performance is so close to the truth of Judy Garland's persona — wry wit, nervous mannerisms, and all — and Garland's effect on her fans, that we can forgive Zellweger doing her own singing. (Not bad, just not Judy.)

BEST ACTOR Joaquin Phoenix, Joker. He's already won everything else. It's chilling that Phoenix has tapped into some kind of grim cultural zeitgeist in this origin story of the pathetic failed comic fueled by psychosis to become the creepiest supervillain in the DC Comics universe. (Talk about art imitating life.) In a just, less traumatized world, the gold would go to Antonio Banderas in Pain And Glory, the performance of the year.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon A Time     . . . In Hollywood. Of the four nominees also contending for Best Picture, Hollywood has the snappiest dialogue, coupled with a typically nervy Tarantino wish-fulfillment plot. But don't rule out Parasite, whose savage satire on wealth and class makes it the likeliest spoiler of the evening.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Greta Gerwig, Little Women. In this notably guy-oriented field (The Irishman, The Two Popes, Joker, Jojo Rabbit), the Academy might offer Gerwig an olive branch after failing to nominate her for Best Director.

BEST DIRECTOR/BEST PICTURE These two categories used to be joined at the hip. But there have been recent upsets, now that there are so many more nominated films (nine, this year, each of which Academy voters are required to rate in order of preference), diffusing the likelihood of a clear front-runner. There are still only five directing nominees, however, encouraging more focused voting. (That's how Alfonso Cuaron won for directing Roma, last year, but the affable Green Book got more likes for Best Picture.)

So. Narrowing down the movies to the five with nominated directors, Todd Phillips' Joker is perceived as more of an actor's showcase, Hollywood will pick up its awards in other categories, and Martin Scorsese's The Irishman has lost its pre-season buzz. That leaves Sam Mendes' visually daring WWI epic, 1917 (constructed to look like it was shot in one, long take), and the upstart Parasite.

All in the family: Parasite

  1917 is sure to win in the Best Cinematography category for veteran lensman Roger Deakins. Just as certainly, Parasite will clinch the prize for Best International (formerly Foreign Language) Feature. But here's my prediction for the main event:

BEST PICTURE 1917. BEST DIRECTOR Bong Joon Ho, Parasite.

(The 92nd Academy Awards will be broadcast live, Sunday, February 9, 5pm, on ABC. Tune in to find out just how wrong I can be!)