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“ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT”

My final tribute to my late friend Vladek Sheybal will be to draw attention, perhaps for the first time in years, to a seldom seen production of Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM directed by his good friend and colleague Celestino Coronado, with the The Lindsey Kemp Company. This was done on video in 1984 and was shown on the BBC, and also had several private screenings at the time. Celestino had created a bit of a stir a few years before with his very avant-garde production of HAMLET (1977) which starred our very own Vladek Sheybal, along with Quentin Crisp and a youthful Helen Mirren, performing both Ophelia and Gertrude in this production that also boasted two Hamlets as well.

This presentation of ‘Midsummer’ is unusual for a number of reasons. First of all it is a musical version of the play with stunning surreal costumes and sets. The casting and performances are homoerotic by design, with Lindsey Kemp’s version of Puck very sexual, as is Oberon and the relationship with the Changeling.

I am told that both of these productions produced by Lindsey Kemp’s company are available on VHS and are well worth looking for on EBay. It is hard to describe just how beautiful these productions are and how imaginative they were in execution and performance. The Lindsey Kemp Company was legendary in London at the time I first came to know Vladek, and anyone who has had the privilege of seeing one of Lindsey’s presentations is never likely to forget it.

Nor I am likely to forget meeting the director of A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM on a long ago weekend in Los Angeles.

Celestino Coronado arrived at LAX and took a cab straight to my place in Beverly Hills, as Vladek had given him all the particulars regarding where I lived and how we should get to know each other as kindred spirits of the theater as well as the unknown, so to speak..

Celestino was at knocking at my front door while I was in the throes of planning a birthday party for my best friend. With perfect timing, Celestino joined our band of merry makers for the evening, and what a character he turned out to be. He decided to dress all in white for the occasion and, blessed with a huge toothy grin and an accent even Carmen Miranda could not figure out, there he was as God made him. Of course the more he drank the less you understood. After a while I just left him to his own devices as the festivities went on until daybreak. The next day around noon I finally forced myself out of bed to start the much needed clean up in the living room and kitchen. I made my way into the living room, which was a whirlwind of bottles and empty plates etc. Out on the patio was more debris, and in the corner a large tablecloth was on the ground and looked like there was something under it. When I got out and finally lifted the thing up, there was Celestino, still in his white suit, still not quite sober yet, asking me if breakfast was ready? This was over twenty years ago, and I still wonder whatever happened to this eccentric talented madman.

“MAD ABOUT THE BOY”

One of the many perks one can hope to attain from doing a column like this is getting acquainted with like-minded people, not to mention kindred spirits who are at once on your page and hip to your scene etc….In January I profiled the remarkable Frances Faye and in doing so made contact with Tyler Alpern’s definitive website in her honor which you must log onto at www.tyleralpern.com/francesfaye.html ASAP.

Upon closer inspection of Tyler’s site for the Divine Frances, you begin to notice that this man is not only a serious student of the nightclub and Cabaret scene of the “golden days” of the twenties and thirties, but a historian whose enthusiastic focus on the beginning of the “Gay” movement in the arts is to be applauded . Tyler has brought much needed attention to a talented gentleman almost forgotten named Bruz Fletcher, a cabaret artist and songwriter whose life’s story is worthy of Fitzgerald and just as tragic, as he lived in that dangerous era where homosexuals were considered outsiders and shunned by much of society in and out of show business.. It was a song he wrote called “Drunk with Love,” that Frances always included in her act, that brought Bruz to Tyler’s attention, and his scholarship did the rest. Now Bruz Fletcher has a website, and fans that his talent so richly deserves.

However Tyler Alpern’s many talents do not end there…he is also a brilliant painter in his own right and, not content just to do his own work, he also teaches others how to express themselves to the best of their abilities. As Tyler is fond of saying, “Everyone can produce art.” Many of Tyler’s paintings deal with pop culture. They are narrative paintings. He is a colorist, and most assuredly an inventive painter. I have included one of my favorite paintings: Tyler’s study of a certain Peggy of Venice, watching or rather not watching the passing parade outside her villa that faces onto one of the canals in Venice…this one is called “PEGGY’S FURY” If you wish to inquire about the paintings of Tyler Alpern, please email him directly at trumpdace@ yahoo.com

Tyler Alpern currently lives and teaches in Boulder Colorado. Long a native of that beautiful state, he still finds the time to travel all over the world wherever inspiration can be found. His life is definitely a work in progress

Needless to say I admire Tyler’s spirit and share his love of show business and all things wild and free, like our fabulous Frances Faye, who brought us to together in the first place.
Did I mention that Tyler is also delightfully modest as well?

IS THERE ANY OTHER WAY?

Until next month may all your dreams
Be in Hi Def with much enhancement baby

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