REVIEW: ETHAN HAWKE - A BRIGHT RAY OF DARKNESS

 

4/5

Darkness On The Edge Of Broadway.

Hark! Who goes there? Times Square. All of the lights. Here's what we know about this name written in them. Ethan Hawke first got our attention like "O Captain! O Captain!" as he got on the desk of 'Dead Poets Society' and got that of the late, great Robin Williams. But the 'Training Day' star and Denzel Washington's man (how nice is 'The Magnificent Seven' reunion for Antoine Fuqua?) is more than that, or even that rookie cop, ride along movie. The American actor, writer and director has been nominated for four Academy Awards (half of those for screenwriting) and a Tony. Getting behind the camera for three feature-films ('Chelsea Walls', 'The Hottest State' and 'Blaze'), three off-Broadway plays and a Toronto film festival favourite debuting documentary ('Seymour: An Introduction'). The 'Reality Bites' star is cult best known for his 'Before' trilogy of Sunrises, Sunsets and Midnight's with French megastar Julie Delpy and revolutionary director Richard Linklater ('Dazed and Confused', 'Everybody Wants Some') who also literally directed Hawke over time for the decade plus spanning 'Boyhood' experimental and epic family drama. Or he may be better known for once being married to 'Gattaca' co-star and 'Kill Bill' and 'Pulp Fiction' icon Uma Thurman. Now 'Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood' their daughter Maya Hawke is making her own name as the scene stealing Robin in 'Stranger Things' season 3, amongst forging herself a beautiful music career with her pops barn music video direction. AHOY! Not bad for a 50 year old from Austin, Texas who right now is filming the latest Marvel super-series alongside Oscar Isaac's (what a cast already), 'Moon Knight' were he plays the villain. Like he does here. 

Blazing like saddles of late this man has been on even more of a trail. Critical acclaim came like it should have done with an award for his church chaplin character in Paul Schrader's 'First Reformed' in 2018, but before that he was already mounting up and riding. Donning a stetson twice in a year for something 'Magnificent' and the underrated 'In A Valley Of Violence' (think 'John Wick' in the Wild West...they even kill his dog), face offing opposite John Travolta. After some classic sci-fi cameos in Luc Besson's 'Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets' and a directors cut one in the 'Total Recall' remake opposite Colin Farrell, the renaissance man has been hitting his stride of American legends. Like country and Western singer 'Blaze', or the coil of Serbian-American inventor and engineer 'Tesla'. Playing Pat Garrett alongside 'Valerian' himself Dane DeHaan's Billy in Vincent D'Onofrio's underrated 'The Kid', you'd be forgiven for thinking the man who earned his spurs wanted to keep them. And why not? Who could blame him? His Showtime special on the "instrument of God" John Brown ('The Good Lord Bird') does nothing to abolish that...which you best believe is a good, no great thing. Ethan's first love, however was in theatre and the stage hawker who made his debut in '92 with' The Seagull' most recently retook to the Broadway stage with Paul Dano in 2019 for Sam Shepard's (rest peacefully) 'True West'...oh, another Western. So much in his saloon you'd be forgiven for thinking the man who has just released his fourth novel (his first three include 'Ash Wednesday', 'The Hottest State' and 2015's 'The Hottest State'. Not to mention the 'Indeh: A Story Of The Apache Wars' graphic novel) was releasing a prohibition era one with its burnt orange dust jacket by a struck match looking to set everything ablaze like moonshine. 'A Bright Ray Of Darkness' however sets alight the spotlights of theatre. Stage set, were Hawke's narrator is a movie actor on the ropes of life, dealing with divorce from a much more famous celebrity partner (a rock goddess) and being present with his kids whilst trying to maintain a Broadway run of 'Henry IV' under a media glare like Times Square. Wait a minute! Is he writing about himself? Is this semi-autobiographical? Meta? Surely not. This character is cloaked in so much narcissism, if it is him then this really would be dripping with a gratuitous greed of self-indulgence. We think instead this Hawkeye is just having his fun with us, all whilst taking some shots with the bow at his younger life. Playing Cupid to a Devils advocate. It's awfully stage left close though for a man that even once played Hotspur on Broadway with an off-contemporary twist. The New Yorker magazine calling it, "a compelling, ardent creation." How much more on the nose can you get? Well, the name of this character reciting Shakespeare? No, not Ethan (thank God), but William.

To preen, or not to preen. That is the new social media age old question. Now the legacy 'half' hour of time before an actor takes to the stage they are looking at their reflection not between illuminating flashbulbs, but the distortion of a black mirror. Compelling like his interview cadence or bar room keeping the first act of Aussie sci-fi 'Predestination' in perfect time. Well-written and heartbreaking honest and defiantly devote though in a time were we can curate our own online narratives with little thought spared for anyone else in this merciless purge, Hawke delivers us a nuanced one worthy of the bestsellers. Sure talking about a struggling male, white actor on Broadway in 2020 is seriously selfish. But without wearing a mask even on stage it is so much more self aware than critics will give credit for. Here's a man who in character takes ownership for his side of the street, but won't play into a "wrong side of the tracks" cliche when there's more reasons than the catalyst of cheating to why a marriage breaks down and rings are tore off fingers with no more death do us part. Sure the sex here (espeically in another made bed) is dirty but like Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals (how fitting) once said, "I remember when sex was dirty and the air was clean. And everything worth knowing was in a magazine". I don't know if that means much to this, but it's a hell of a line. Besides the bed side manner here is still written with a blue beauty Haruki Murakami signature with all the passion that comes with it. Playing out in the tabloid scripts, the real expose is the exploration of a man's mind when everything leaves him behind. Friends, family, the industry. The dream he had in his soul. Not the heart of one lost in the bight lights like the big city. It doesn't matter if he's in the Big Apple entertainment core of the world. He's lent up on a dumpster on a Times Square side-street in chain-mail and pigs blood, eating an ice cream sandwich so his voice doesn't pack its bags and leave a ring on the table too. He had the world. He gave it up for night. He thought the people loved him. He's about to hear what they really say behind his back cheered into the masses of a crowd at a safe distance like six social feet. This book is as blisteringly brutal as the bloodthirsty displays that used to play in The Globe. And even if this is theatrical Hawke doesn't escape all that is shed here in the name of his own life, he comes out swinging from the canvas of playwrights. Seconds out. Some may think showing that side isn't really bright (whiskey business). But when all our life is a stage, that's real darkness. And in lifting the curtain and showing us behind the scenes backstage, Ethan Green Hawke deserves his standing ovation. Take a bow. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

REVIEW: HARUKI MURAKAMI - FIRST PERSON SINGULAR

4/5

Singulars Without Plurals.

First things first people, let's get down to the singulars of Haruki Murakami's latest classic collection of compelling short stories ('First Person Singular'). All the lonely people, drifting through Tokyo and the rest of this land as rising sun turns to neon, lost in translation. The kind of hearts you see beating between backstreet bars and midnight diners for their Tokyo stories. The soul of this city. Dressed up like a yukata, but shrouded in the suited shadows of a salary man's uniform. Drowning in sake and regret. Down on their pachinko slot luck. But still so atmospheric and beautiful like the purple or orange sunsets here that remind you of sakura season in all its cherry blossom and still give you hope for the momiji-gari of a red Autumn they hope will never leave. Showing in a fleeting moment and perfect poignancy that there may be darkness to come once the day is done, but still a bright one will follow the light of a brand new sunrise. There's the cat that doesn't get the 'Cream' on a Prince song named somber affair that turns anxiety into a meditating cure to all those ills in a world as stressful as Shibuya crossing at six. Not an actual cat...that one was abandoned on another short story you can find in the legendary magazine 'The New Yorker' were a couple of these tall tales originated from in type. Have you ever been stood up for a date? Yeah...we all have. But imagine being stood up for a concert invitation after ascending the mountains of Kobe to find a bolt on the door like a 'Coach Carter' gym. Talk about performing solo. Did he get the wrong time like when former NBA young gun OJ Mayo asked the late, great Bryant who was named after the same  Japanese city after his pops Joe 'Jellybean' (I see a running food metaphor...and I'm hungry) if he could practice with him? "Sure meet me at 3", 24 replied. Mayo waited at 3PM for hours the next day. No garnish to the Mamba's promise. He called him all mad when he finally gave up the ghost. "Where were you?" "Where was I? Where were you?" The Hall of Famer replied. "I was waiting for you. I was there. Right on time...3AM!"

You think I meander too much into my sportswriting gig? Just you wait. 'On A Stone Pillow' Murakami lyrically laments a lost girl who calls his narrator by another name as the love they make tries to take her higher, or to the past paradise of a love gone with the wind. Leaving her as dead as a head resting on a stone pillow waiting for the other shoe to drop in an execution gavel to a heart that's already stopped beating so long ago it felt like the stone age. Is it insomnia were faithless you can't get no sleep? Or is it a fever dream that brings you to a bar that has 'Charlie Parker Play(ing) Bossa Nova'? Are you as high as a Bird? Or having the same thing Jack Nicholson was in 'The Shining' as the spirit of that iconic Kubrick from King bar sobers the mind? You be the judge here, like who is a character, or who is stranger than fiction, first person Haruki. With this ode to one of jazz music's greatest, playing like a fictional, but spiritual college newspaper album review of a record that didn't even exist, forget the cutting-room floor. Or did it? Nostalgia nuances see a schoolboy crush run past our half-way narrator in uniform with the fact that he never ever saw her again 'With The Beatles' for a man as muse obsessed with the Fab Four as his country (I mean check the 'Rubber Soul' of his signature classic. And when it comes to 'Men Without Women' like Oscar nominated Steven Yeun 'Burning', I want to turn his short 'Drive Mr Car' into a movie starring Hiroyuki Sanada at the Park Hyatt...hey a dreamer that made it here can dream on). Clutching John, Paul, George and Ringo in monochrome under her arm and what could have been. As a life of lust, death and more stood up symbolism permeates an awkward family room wait with the brother of a lover. This and the fellow New Yorker piece 'Confessions Of A Shinagawa Monkey' at a hotel room mini-bar after some too close for comfort hot spring steaming are the highlights of this cohesive collections set. Even if I couldn't get the monkey from the PG Tips advert (the Johnny Vegas one my fellow Brits) out my head...I've done worse when picturing characters. This monkey does not mind his business and you'll go ape s### at his sin. You may even shed a tear at the tragic conclusion to this chapter, but will it be for the primate or some other mate? 

'Carnaval' doesn't exactly keep the party going like you think it would as Murakami's narrator debates classical music and the "ugly" girl he befriends and deems a F*. Although once you get behind the proposal of the ring on her finger, one of the most complex plots of 'First Person' will linger. 'The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection' will remedy all this darkness with some light-hearted couplets and prose for a team that may be in more despair than the narrators of the other short stories. Although Haruki Murakami admitting this one is him and how his self-published poetry collection from the diamond remains one of his most sought after and high-priced bookshelf finds. Rounding the bases the man who loves baseball and decided to become a novelist at 29 after a run were ball hit bat in a light bulb moment click brings us home with no foul balls. But how about the last curve thrown for the story this book is named after? 'First Person Singular' ends like a descent into hell with a suit and tie and apparition chasing a vodka gimlet in a world were we'd choose one last shot over a last meal. 'Til death do us part. Leaving us with much more than a bitter taste, but so many questions wanting more. This 'First Person Singular' is curtain call concluded perfectly with 'First Person Singular', as the 'Norwegian Wood' man continues his hot streak since the 'Wind' took his 'Pinball' away to the tune of 22 novels like 'Kafka On The Shore' (thanks, sis), 'South Of The Border, West Of The Sun' and the marathon memoir of 'What I Talk About When I Talk About Running' (catch up to it). All in his singular, signature style mixing meataphysic other worlds of dreams too real to wake. With a bruised soul, aching loneliness, chased with explicitly blue beauty in sexuality. The Japanese master who can pen sprawling epics like the Orwellian '1Q84' trilogy and the last full length 'Killing Commendatore' (thanks, Bec), or short stories like this hasn't haunted our loneliness quite like this or since the days of 'Men Without Women'. A friend from back home like the one who told me you wait to turn to the photos in autobiography books when you've read and earnt them said he waits to find each Murakami book he reads by chance, so he can enjoy Haruki's work gently throughout his life with no rush. Instead of having nothing left. It's a romantic notion I've adopted and since moving to Japan two years ago I've found seven. But I couldn't wait for this one. Right now to join a Murakami cafe, there's a library and Tokyo and of course Murakami Radio that has inspired a latest Uniqlo clothing collection curated by Haruki himself (you best believe I copped a few tops). But nothing right now is more personal than this first singular. Just like you should 'Dance, Dance, Dance' with your 'Sputnik Sweetheart' it's time to read, read, read all about it. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Further Reading: 'Men Without Women', 'Desire', 'Killing Commendatore'.