My review of Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (Tor) appeared in the Charleston Post and Courier on Sunday. Aparently, my regular ed was on vacation because the review was trimmed somewhat. Now I'm used to being edited judiciously, and this piece was cut for reasons of space, but the end result wasn't quite as sweet as the short feature should have been. So here's the full monty...

What’s so strange about the South? Quite a lot according to Crossroads, an anthology that mixes mystery and horror, fantasy and science fiction, cautionary tales and American Gothic storytelling.

Somehow, this eclectic bunch makes the book worth reading. Editors F. Brett Cox and Andy Duncan have compiled stories that are all written by Southerners, by birth or residence. This doesn’t mean that they’re all great writers, but there is an authentic sense of people and place. These scribes inhabit a land of old dark houses, bizarre coincidences, lost love and dimension-rending cicadas.

Several Southern literary giants are mentioned in the introduction, including William Faulkner, Mark Twain and Truman Capote. Most of the Crossroads writers are obscure by comparison, although Big Fish author Daniel Wallace contributes a canny piece called Slippered Feet. Charleston’s own Bret Lott is also represented, although his Rose is a less successful Faulkner pastiche. Stand-out entries include Andy Duncan’s The Map to the Homes of the Stars, a hip story that only loses its cool in the last paragraph.

Scott Edelman’s My Life is Good is a fun time travel adventure laced with biting wit. Marian Carache provides a masterclass in economical storytelling. Her The Moon and the Stars is by turns grubby, beautiful, sensuous and tragic.

No matter where it’s set, a ghost story is still a ghost story. The best tales in this collection help readers to suspend their disbelief with robust narratives, building a strong relationship with the characters. Despite this, all these yarns are linked and illuminated by the mysterious twilight of the South.

I've always found moving house very traumatic - probably because I have to go through the woes of transporting my 'nest' from one place to another. Furniture's the major problem. A house looks great when it's empty, with plenty of space to explore and dream of possibilities. Then it gets clutters up with all your junk, and it's not the same anymore. Still, there's about four weeks to go before my closing date so anything could happen in the meantime.

I'm pleased to say that my Jack-O'-Lanterns are improving. Using the sharpest, biggest knives I could find, I successfully carved a face in a massive pumpkin yesterday without chopping off one of my fingers or clogging up the Eliminator with seeds. I still can't bring myself to eat the innards - they're just too stinky.

The final words on South (for now) go to Melissa Gallagher of the Charleston City Paper. You can read her full review at www.charlestoncitypaper.com

'The Actors’ Theatre of South Carolina, in association with the South Carolina Historical Society and the Historic Charleston Foundation, mounted an ambitious production of a little-seen Southern play at the Sottile Theatre last weekend (they premiered it in Savannah in September). South, written by French-American author Julian Green in 1953, incorporates elements of both film and live theatre … ATSC deserves a nod at the very least for taking on such a monumental effort.

'The Sottile Theatre has rarely been considered a great place for live theatre, although local companies and Spoleto Festival USA have often programmed opera and dance in the cavernous former movie theatre. Despite this, the Sottile seemed well suited for South, and hearing the unamplified actors was never a problem. Set director Jean Hutchison created an authentic-looking facsimile of a well-appointed plantation drawing room on the Sottile’s huge stage, and her many period costumes for the dozen or so characters were remarkable.

'Set directly in the middle of the rear wall of the drawing room was a vertical white hanging “flat” which worked as an erstwhile projection screen throughout the production. For most of the play, the screen held a video image of a window, through which trees and the plantation grounds could be seen, rustled occasionally by a breeze — a particularly creative touch from co-director (with Chris Weatherhead) Nick Smith, which worked well for the most part, although the lighting of the projection didn’t match that of the room as well as it might have. At other times, the window was displaced by silent, filmed scenes meant to complement the exposition on the stage. Sometimes this worked, and sometimes it was merely distracting. The ghostly apparition one of the play’s main characters, Lieutenant Jan Wicziewsky, saw there was creepy and effective, as was the choreographed nighttime duel between Wicziewsky and neighboring plantation owner Eric MacClure later in the play — where it served to illustrate action taking place offstage while the main characters mainly pulled their hair, rent their garments, and gnashed their teeth over it.

'Folly Beach-based Actors’ Theatre of South Carolina can be proud of putting together such a huge project, which from the looks of the program was almost cinematic in scope. Presumably they’re now mopping their brows and, hopefully, looking forward to bringing the same high production values to something a bit more manageable.'

Would you believe it, the South show was a hit. The last show (a Sunday matinee) was completed without a hitch and there was a big audience. We struck the set, got together at a friend's house and tried to unwind. We held auditions for this play 5 months ago and I've been planning it for almost a year, so I'm sure that you'll understand that, for the purposes of brevity and to make me feel good, I'll stick to the highlights when I quote a review by William Furtwangler, of the Charleston Post and Courier.

'A visually impressive recreation of the day before the start of the U.S. Civil War, April 11, 1861, at the "Bonaventure" Plantation, somewhere south of Charleston. The Sottile Theatre, filled to near capacity, resonated to a variety of Southern drawls, the music of Richard Wagner (and others) and a spirit of impending doom.

'Green (1900-1998), with a mother from Savannah and father from Virginia, was born in Paris and spent the majority of his life in France, becoming a member of the distinguished and exclusive literary institution Academie Francaise. "South" (or "Sud") was penned in 1953. Considering the play's subject matter, it was daring, if not scandalous, for those times.
Green's players mused about the theology of war and peace, slavery and abolition, and unacknowledged heterosexual and homosexual love, though in this production the last point was downplayed to the point of murkiness, much as Hollywood treated its adaptations of the plays of Tennessee Williams and William Inge...

'Once the plot got moving this strange tale of people out of touch with reality, not unlike Chekov's Russian aristocracy, began to be believable and gripping. Clarence Felder (Edward Broderick, plantation owner) dominated the stage when present. Trevor Erickson (Jan Wicziewsky) emerged gradually but convincingly as a descendant of Polish nobles torn between the North and the South, among other things. Christina Rhodes (Regina), an orphan relative from the North, was believable in her abolitionist stance. Overall, a good production of a slightly different view of the Old South.'

Halle Brown as the Child and Charles Venning as Uncle John. Halle is excellent and Charles' performances are always fascinating. I'd work with 'em again.

Up at 4.30 a.m. yesterday to get to a TV interview on ABC. The Yellow Cab driver, a guy from up North with greasy hair and a weasel face, complained about his dispatcher all the way to the station. ‘He likes to pick on the new guys. There’s only one kind of drivin’ he’s good at – drivin’ staff away to other companies. He hasn’t seen what a kid I am till he picks on me. Then I’ll show him how much of a kid I can be…’

At the interview, I was only slightly more coherent than the weatherman (I guess he’d prefer ‘meteorologist’) Justin Lock who, like me, was obviously not a fan of early mornings. The P.A.s at ABC start work at midnight, putting the early morning program together. By the time I was awake they were ready to get to their beds.

The rest of the day was a rush of promotion, backstage work, rehearsal and preparation for our first night in Charleston, SC tonight. I can only hope that the show will work as well here as in Savannah – the actors’ performances have improved and they have found new nuances in every rehearsal. It’s amazing to think what they could accomplish in a longer run.

L to R - Trevor & Christina, David & Lisa. Chris Weatherhead (Mrs Strong) is the lady with the umbrella.

VPKs

I've just finished re-editing the film segments of South, implementing some last minute changes for my co-director.

After blowing its top, the Sanyo projector that we usually use for our screenings wasn't available for any of the Savannah performances; the dealers who sold the projector assured us that the equipment would be returned to us in time for the Charleston run - knowing full well that it would take days (at least) to get a new part from Japan...

We hired a different, bulkier machine for the Lucas Theatre, which created new compatibility problems. For the Sottile shows we're trying a third projector and Sanyo owes us big time.

I've been asked to appear on local TV over the next couple of days to talk about the play and its author, Julian Green. Unfortunately the call time is 5.45 a.m. - not when I'm at my best. Multiple intravenous injections of caffeine are the only answer.

Thanks heavens for Video Press Kits, which can do the talking for the most comatose of co-directors. I put a trailer together yesterday, featuring Clarence Felder (as Edward Broderick), Trevor Erickson (Lieutenant Veechefsky) and Christina Rhodes (Regina) - three charismatic leads who will hopefully entice TV viewers into our theatre.