Encore: Who lives, who dies, who gets to tell your story?

Creative genius / Lin-Manuel Miranda

It's been said that works of art have long informed how people understand the past, and Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, which I saw for the second time in the past year last weekend in New York City, is no exception.

As the creative genius of the Broadway smash-hit Hamilton, Miranda changed the way that people considered one of the Founding Fathers and the era he lived in. In doing so, it put Miranda in lofty territory, alongside how Shakespeare transformed Richard III, and how the author Leon Uris romanticized the founding of Israel in his novel Exodus.

In revisiting an essay I wrote about Miranda in March 2016, here's some things worth noting:

In creating Hamilton, Miranda relied on the core elements of hip-hop and R & B-inspired music as well as jazz, pop and Tin Pan Alley – plus a racially-diverse cast – to make history as relatable as possible. Soon after its 2015 debut, Hamilton became a certifiable Broadway box office hit – it remains one of the toughest, most-sought after tickets on Broadway – and the musical became centered around a story arc that relates Hamilton's life story, from his orphaned upbringing in the West Indies to his death in a duel at the hands of Aaron Burr.

"This is a story about America then, told by America now," Miranda, a native New Yorker of Puerto Rican heritage, once told The Atlantic, "and we want to eliminate any distance between a contemporary audience and this story."

In a September 29, 2015 essay for The Atlantic, Edward Delman wrote, "Hamilton, then, has the potential to strongly influence the way Americans think about the early republic. For one thing ... it understands Thomas Jefferson to be a deeply flawed individual. It presents an American history in which women and people of color share the spotlight with the founding fathers. The primarily black and Hispanic cast reminds audiences that American history is not just the history of white people, and frequent allusions to slavery serve as constant reminders that just as the revolutionaries were fighting for their freedom, slaves were held in bondage.

"Perhaps, the most significant lesson the show might teach audiences, and one that has particular relevance today, is the outsized role immigrants have played in the nation's history. Alexander Hamilton was an immigrant – a fact that Miranda repeatedly emphasizes throughout the show – and the musical also prominently features the Marquis de Lafayette, a French nobleman who played a crucial role during the revolutionary war."

It's pretty amazing to think back to the fascinating process which Miranda translated the history of the unlikely rise and untimely fall of the first U.S. Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, onto the stage. He drew upon the Ron Chernow biography of Hamilton for focus and inspiration. Then, flash back to May 12, 2009, when Miranda first performed "The Hamilton Mixtape" before an audience that included President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music and the Spoken Word, accompanied by pianist Alex Lacamoire.

In looking back at a February 2015 feature about Hamilton, Rebecca Meade of The New Yorker wrote: "It does not seem accidental that Hamilton was created during the tenure of the first African-American President. The musical presents the birth of the nation in an unfamiliar but necessary light: not solely as the world of élite white men but as the foundational story of all Americans. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington are all played by African-Americans. Miranda also gives prominent roles to women, including Hamilton's wife Eliza Schuyler, and sister-in-law Angelica Schuyler. When they are joined by a third sister, their zigzagging harmonies sound rather like those of Destiny's Child.

"Miranda portrays the Founding Fathers not as exalted statesmen but as orphaned sons, reckless revolutionaries, and sometimes petty rivals, living at a moment of extreme volatility, opportunity, and risk. The achievements and the dangers of America's current moment – under the Presidency of a fatherless son of an immigrant, born in the country's island margins – are never far from view."

The Grammy Award-winning original cast recording, produced by The Roots' Questlove and Black Thought – has been a welcome companion of mine on my car stereo for several years – and I never really tire of its songs.

"I don't know how many really good ideas you get in a lifetime," Miranda once told The Hollywood Reporter, "but the idea of telling Hamilton as a hip-hop story was definitely one because you get to do everything: love and death and a war and duels and revenge and affairs and sex scandals."

One thing remains certain: Thanks to Miranda's genius, the Tony Award-winning Hamilton continues to have a positive influence in altering our perception of American history, and the role in which artists are helping shape historical narrative. And, Miranda knows that he can't stop being who he is just because more people are looking at him.

Photo credits: Lin-Manuel Miranda's Twitter feed and Google Images. Video/audio credit: YouTube.com.

The time for advise and consent is now, Mr. President

Last night, while many of us throughout America were either sitting down to Thursday dinner or enjoying an evening of "must-watch" prime-time television, the U.S. made a direct attack of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria (where it was already early Friday morning) in retaliation for the gruesome chemical weapons attack against civilians by the Assad regime.

The attack represented the first direct American assault on the Syrian government and President Donald Trump's "most dramatic military order since becoming president."

The airfield strikes denoted a very big change in U.S. policy – and it was done without the President seeking congressional approval. "Assad's vicious brutality demands a response," said Congressman Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) on his Facebook page. "But this country doesn't fight wars without giving the American people a say." Many others in Congress conveyed the same thoughts as Kennedy.

There's a lot to digest here and both American and international media are weighing in on this story of world consequences. It's front-page "real" news across this country and the video images have been splashed all over various American cable TV news networks almost continuously since last evening.

There's one little thing that I am just a little troubled by. Perhaps, you are, too. The President said during his speech to the nation Thursday, delivered from a makeshift podium inside Mar-a-Lago, where earlier he had been hosting a dinner for the Chinese President: "No child of God should suffer such horror." Hmm. ... So,  he sees them now as children of God, but not when they are trying to escape the danger of civil war and chemical weapons?

Air strike or not, Mr. President, we must welcome Syrian refugees into our country like our good neighbors to the north, Canada, have been doing with dignity and humanity for some time. The time to act, sir, is now.

Lessons in life: The Pianist of Willesden Lane

In her one-woman show, The Pianist of Willesden Lane, piano virtuoso
Mona Golabek chronicles her mother's escape from the Holocaust.

The Pianist of Willesden Lane is the true story of Lisa Jura, a 14-year-old Jewish musical prodigy who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist. Set in Vienna in 1938 and in London during the Blitzkrieg, this story of hope and perseverance includes some of the world's most beloved piano music. It has been turned into a one-woman play starring internationally celebrated pianist Mona Golabek, Jura's daughter, that is enjoying an encore run this month at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre following a critically-acclaimed New York premiere.

This poignant, 90-minute tribute is based on the book The Children of Willesden Lane, written by Golabek and Lee Cohen. It's a coming-of-age story of one young girl's survival and how music saved her life.

My wife and I attended a performance of The Pianist of Willesden Lane last Friday evening in Berkeley, Calif., in which Golabek slips into the persona of her mother at age 14 during the tumult of adolescence and war, and we both found it to be a very passionate and enriching experience.

Imagine if you will, being confronted with the horror of being Jewish in Nazi-occupied Vienna, and, then, being the chosen one among three siblings to be saved from the Holocaust with the one ticket your family had for the Kindertransport, a rescue mission that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Lisa Jura's parents were forced to make a difficult family decision. They chose to send the gifted Lisa to London and safety.

In a hostel on Willesden Lane, Lisa fought to realize her musical dreams. Her music became a beacon of hope for the many displaced children of the war. From Grieg's "Piano Concerto in A Minor" to Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" to Debussy's "Clair de Lune", which Jura later passed down to her daughters, each represented the power of music to uplift the human spirit.

"My mother, Lisa Jura, was my best friend," writes Golabek in the play's program notes. "She taught my sister, Renee, and me to play the piano. We loved our piano lessons with her."

And, yet, they became more than piano lessons -- they were lessons in life.

"They were filled with stories of a hostel in London and the people she knew there," said Golabek. "Her stories were our folklore, bursting with bits and pieces of wonderful characters who bonded over her music."

Sitting at the piano as a child, Golabek recalled, "I would close my eyes and listen to her lilting voice and imagine her world. She always believed 'each piece of music tells a story.'"

The virtuoso Golabek performs a dozen different pieces of classical music plus a few light standards, sitting center stage with her Steinway grand piano as her co-star, during The Pianist of Willesden Lane. The play was adapted and directed by Hershey Felder. Throughout, there's an infusion of hope shaped by the life-affirming power of music. A classical piano repertoire has the power to do just that. The three movements of Grieg's "Piano Concerto in A Minor" serve as a beginning, middle and ending to Jura's story in The Pianist of Willesden Lane.

As Golabek appears center stage at the play's beginning, she says: "My name is Lisa Jura, and I'm 14 years old." Her voice has transformed into a girlish lilt with a slight accent. "It's Vienna, 1938, and it's a Friday afternoon. I'm preparing for the most important hour of my week -- my piano lesson."...

In the introduction to The Children of Willesden Lane, Golabek wrote: "My mother had lived an incredible journey and she had infused her music with everything she had experienced: her childhood with loving parents in Vienna before World War II; her escape to England aboard the legendary Kindertransport; her struggle to study her music while a war raged around her; and, always, her endless fascination with that ramshackle building at 243 Willesden Lane, the hostel in the London suburbs where she lived as a young refugee separated from her family."

As she boarded the train in Vienna, Lisa's mother told her: "Never stop playing and I will be with you every step of the way." Jura took those words to heart. Her legacy has inspired Golabek's music and her own life. "Music will give you strength," her mother reassured her. "It will be your best friend in life."

In each piece of music during The Pianist of Willesden Lane, there is a story. And, through Golabek's narrative and performance, we discover what those stores are and their importance. She says of her mother: "I pass along her story in the hope that it may enrich the passion and music that lie in each of us."

Indeed, as the audience stood and applauded Golabek at the conclusion of her heartfelt performance of The Pianist of Willesden Lane, there weren't many dry eyes on this rainy winter's night. What we had just witnessed was, indeed, a deeply moving and inspiring tribute to the power of a mother's love for her children.

The music played in The Pianist of Willesden Lane:
• Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 16; first movement.
• Beethoven: Sonata, op. 27, no. 2; "Moonlight"
• Debussy: Clair de Lune; "Moonlight" from Suite bergamasque.
• Chopin: Nocturne in B-Flat Major, op. 9, no. 1.
• Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 16; second movement.
• Bach: Partita #1 in B-Flat Major, BMV 825.
• Grieg: Piano Concerto, op. 16; first movement Cadenza.
• Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, BMW 147.
• Audition scene: Bach Partita #1 in B-Flat Major; Beethoven Piano Sonata #21 in C Major, op. 53 ("Waldstein"); Chopin Scherzo #2 in B-Flat Minor, op. 31; Scriabin Etude in D-Sharp Minor, op. 3, no. 2.
• Gershwin: "Strike Up the Band".
•Eric Maschwitz and Jack Strachey "These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)".
• Rachmaninoff: Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, op. 3, no. 2.
• Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 18; third movement.

Photos: Courtesy of mellopix.com and Google images. Videos: Courtesy of YouTube.com.

At eye level in Iraq: An invitation to learn more about sorrow and hope

Sadr over Prayer, Thawra, Baghdad, Iraq, April 18, 2003.
Photograph © Thorne Anderson.

Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, July 22, 2004.
Photograph © Kael Alford.

Eye Level in Iraq: Photographs by Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson, an exhibition which presented the photographs of two American-trained photojournalists who documented the deep impact and aftermath of the U.S.-led coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003, concluded a four-month engagement at the de Young Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco last weekend.

I viewed this incredibly compelling and moving exhibition Friday evening, which drew upon 62 digital inkjet prints that were representative of the work Alford and Anderson produced over a two-year period -- often under duress. (They were loaned to the de Young by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.)

In an interview earlier this year with the PBS NewsHour, Julian Cox, the chief curator at the San Francisco Art Museums, told of how he was spellbound by the photos which he first saw in 2006. "I felt vehemently they needed to be seen by a large audience.

"Those kinds of pictures are not typically seen in major art museums. There are one or two institutions across the country that do show these kinds of pictures, but you don't usually see them in art museum context ... The pictures are incredibly moving."

For most freelance photographers who are working in a war zone, getting good action photos and selling them to newspapers and magazines around the world -- as well as merely staying alive -- comprise their daily to-do list. That's what Thorne and Anderson did 10 years ago when they went to Iraq as freelance journalists and covered the beginnings of America's war in trying to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Maintaining objectivity was paramount and, indeed, they were hardworking photographers. By not being embedded with the U.S. military, it enabled Alford and Anderson, who are now married and teaching at a university in Texas, the opportunity to cover Iraq itself -- to photograph objects of interest -- and to portray the daily life and realities of a people as they were living with war going on all around them. And, although there are no photographs shot in a combat zone, the bravery and commitment shown by Alford and Anderson was evident throughout this haunting exhibit.

"From the beginning I sensed that Americans' view of the war was obscured," said Anderson in his artist's statement. "Perfectly descriptive words like 'invasion' and 'occupation' were sidestepped in our national press. Prisoners, we were instructed, must be called 'detainees.' These taboos felt like veils, and I wanted to tear them away."

According to Anderson, he tried to abandon his preconceptions of war and asked Iraqis to guide him through their experiences of the war. "I went as deep as I could, even behind 'enemy' lines. It wasn't easy. I tried to remain open and nonjudgmental, and I never felt so patriotic as when I was doing this work."

In the years following the events which comprise Eye Level in Iraq, new political leaders have emerged in Iraq. Yet, even today's headlines coming out of Baghdad in which two coordinated suicide bombers targeted a Shiite mosque, killing 29 people and wounding 55 others, are just the latest in a string of attacks to hit Iraq. While violence has surged as well as political tensions, it revives the fear that Iraq could be headed for a return to widespread sectarian bloodshed.

"Violence has breached nearly every household and Iraq's cities have been divided by fear along sectarian lines," according to Alford, in her artist's statement. "Educated professionals have been targeted and millions of people have fled. Today Iraq is widely regarded as one of the most corrupt and dangerous places in the world."

Alford returned to Iraq in 2011 and found the people in her photographs "plagued by insecurity, a deeply iniquitous judicial system, failing public infrastructure, and a wariness of foreign intervention.

"I found men and women haunted by loss and disappointment and young people, as always, pressing toward the future."

Searching for solace in Iraq, Alford found it in the depth of the country's history and its rivers. "The Euphrates River flows south past Babel, the mythical birthplace of languages, where it joins the Tigris River. Together they cradle the legendary site of the Garden of Eden. Although I am one more on a long list of invaders, I am invited by families to sit beside these rivers. We share meals and sweet flutes of tea and trade stories of sorrow and hope."

To learn more about the Eye Level in Iraq exhibition:

http://deyoung.famsf.org/deyoung/exhibitions/eye-level-iraq-photographs-kael-alford-and-thorne-anderson

To watch the PBS NewsHour story "Remembering the Faces of the Iraq War Through the Eyes of Photojournalists":

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june13/iraqphotos_03-21.html