The colleges closed
down in May, but, as seen in my recent column in the Claremont Courier,
Claremont still has more than its share of interesting people and
activity.
A
HUGE BUILDING FULL OF HOPE
No, I haven’t seen the Hall of Fame.
I have never been downstairs. And
I didn’t know that Winston Churchill had been there.
My friend had returned from using the restroom at Bridges Auditorium,
and, although I thought “Wow!” when he told me that a picture of Winston
Churchill is among the pictures of those who have appeared on its stage that
are on the wall in the basement, I wasn’t surprised. From the time I grew up here in Claremont, I
have heard about famous performers and speakers who have appeared on this
stage, and I have enjoyed seeing a good number of them.
I have always felt, in fact, that it’s too bad that more performers and
speakers don’t appear there. It’s a shame that this great theater, the biggest
collegiate auditorium on the west coast with something like 2400 seats, doesn’t
have performances and presentations (as opposed to graduations and other such
semi-private events) every week, if not every evening. Big Bridges closed for weeks or months, including during the school year, is a
terrible waste.
So I was glad to go there a few weeks ago – all the more so with the
colleges not in session for the summer – with my friend. We were there to see
the Claremont High School production of The Addams Family.
It is always a treat to see the big, end-of-the-year, musical production
in the big theater, even if I still wish there was live musical accompaniment
as in the past. This is big-time stuff – Winston Churchill, after all, was once
on this stage - and the hard-working kids, working under the direction of the
even harder-working Krista Elhai, deserve it. Once again, they didn’t
disappoint.
The Addams Family may not be My Fair Lady, and it’s
definitely no Carousel, but it is a lot of fun. Based on the old popular television sitcom,
which was inspired by the cartoons of Charles Addams, the musical is about what
happens when Wednesday, the daughter in this family of ghouls, falls in love
with a “normal” boy, and her parents, Morticia and Gomez, host a get-acquainted
dinner for the boy’s parents. On this
simple plot hangs lots of silly puns and gags, including a troupe of zombie
dancers, and the students had fun and did their best to let fly with them.
Like I said, it was a treat – and an inspiring one – to see these young
people doing what they clearly love so well.
Jason Acosta was extra fun in his make-up-laden role as Uncle Fester,
who serves as a narrator of sorts while having his own private adventure. And Xavier Reynoso, playing Wednesday’s
younger brat brother Pugsley who loves nothing more than being tortured and
miserable, was a pint-sized revelation.
The real treat is that this kid, who my friend said “has chops,” is only
a freshman, so we’ll hopefully be seeing much more of him.
Yes, hooray for the C.H.S kids and Ms. Elhai once again, but I have to
say that, as bright-eyed and brightening they were, they still didn’t prepare
me for what I saw a days later. Not only
was there another presentation at Big Bridges, in the quiet (or relatively
quiet) month of June, there was Pete Seeger greeting the audience that had
gathered and singing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” for the occasion.
This was on video, of course, but it was nevertheless
breath-taking. I could hear gasps in the
audience, as the renowned folk-singer and activist, filmed at his rural home
nearly a year and a half ago, explaining that he had been invited but, because
of advancing age and decreasing energy, wasn’t sure where he would be at this
time. He died months later, the tape now
a whallop-packing reminder that hope and energy live on.
This was a message that was most appropriate for this audience that had
gathered. It was a huge, eager audience,
almost filling the cavernous hall, and it was gathered for the four-day Tenth
International Whitehead Conference, held in conjunction with several other
international conferences and including a significant contingent from Asia,
with the theme, “Seizing the
Alternative: Towards an Ecological Future.”
The Seeger video was shown during the first of several free,
open-to-the-public plenary sessions held in Big Bridges over the long weekend
of numerous presentations and discussions exploring how people from all walks
and faiths can work together to fight global warming and develop a sustainable,
thriving world community. There were
numerous other greetings, including from Claremont Mayor Corey Calaycay, who
confessed to being nervous about speaking in front of such a large audience as
he touted Claremont’s efforts in being an ecologically friendly town (including
by him and his fellow councilmembers in their own homes and lives). Also
featured in this and one other plenary session I attended were the Pilgrim
Pickers, Pilgrim Place’s resident string band and perhaps Claremont’s unofficial
go-to house band.
Following the Seeger video on the first evening, Bill McKibbon, the
famed climate change activist, spoke.
While he essentially gave the same talk that he gave when he was here a
few years ago, it was an important message: yes, the planet is in dire shape
due to warming which we humans have caused – indeed, it could be that it is too
late to reverse the effects of the warming – but there is hope in the activism
that he has inspired and evident in the weekend’s gathering.
This activism, with a diversity of people coming together, is what the
conference was all about. An important
aspect, and a key image, was the kick-off to a new organization and website
called Pandopolus, bringing together research and information about climate
change and the efforts to stop it. As
explained in another plenary session and illustrated in another video, this
undertaking is inspired by the Pando, the aspen grove in Utah which is the
largest living organism on earth sharing a root system and which is now
endangered.
It is hoped that these four days in Claremont were the beginning of a
movement, a movement based in shared roots and a common passion. At least that’s how John Cobb, a retired
noted theologian and philosopher who lives at Pilgrim Place, sees it. This conclave, it seemed, was his baby,
something of a life-culminating achievement.
And, as he explained during extended remarks during the second plenary
session, the passion that is shared for caring for our planet is the key. As Mr.
Cobb outlined, we need to have a new outlook, based more in our hearts
and on caring, different from the outlook developed in the 1700’s, when the
world came to be seen as a clock, a mechanism to be observed and also used
objectively. When we see the planet as a
machine, he maintains, it is too easy not to be concerned when it is used too
much or is even breaking down (after all, a machine can always be repaired).
Putting on a musical takes a lot of passion
and working together. So does saving our
planet. That’s what a great building
like Big Bridges is for and why it needs to keep being used.
Also, a couple
notes:
With the
confederate flag going down and the rainbow flag going up in the aftermath of
the massacre at the historic black church in Charleston, S.C, and the Supreme
Court declaring that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional, the last two
weeks or so have been breath-taking.
While many, including me, are quite pleased, plenty of others are
unhappy, to say the least. Especially in
the gay marriage situation, many people, including officials like county clerks
who grant marriage licenses, are digging in, fighting back and refusing to go
with the plan. I think that, as with the
Supreme Court Brown decision outlawing school segregation, it will take a while
– perhaps years - for the whole country to buy in, and, as with the menacing
racism in recent years, evidenced most sharply in police killing unarmed black
men and boys and the incident in the Charleston church, it certainly won’t mean
there will no longer be anti-gay rhetoric and violence. It will be a long, hot
summer at least. I take some hope and
comfort in this quote by Juli Luke, the clerk in Denton Countyin Texas who is
against same-sex marriage but will issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples,
because she “took an oath on my family Bible to uphold the law”: “[M]y faith in
Christ ensures I have comparison and respect for those who feel differently.”
Finally, as I did
last year, I’ll be taking some time off.
Because I’ll be traveling in the next few weeks, I may or likely won’t
post for the rest of this month. I’ll be
back with regular posts sometime in August.
