#creditors

via @tom_burke_fanpage on instagram

Tom Burke reflected on his late godfather, Alan Rickman, saying he was a “huge influence” on his life.

Rickman died of cancer in 2016 at the age of 69. He was a close friend of Tom Burke’s parents — actors David Burke and Anna Calder-Marshall.

Burke explained what it was like having Rickman as a godfather: “He was very hands-on, very in touch. He took me out of my comfort zone. He was constantly asking me what I wanted to do. I remember once saying that I desperately wanted to dance, and he encouraged that.

“He was always suggesting things for me to read and watch, and he helped pay my fees through RADA.”

Burke worked with his godfather on several occasions, the last of which saw him star in a production of Strindberg’s 'Creditors', directed by Rickman, first at the Donmar Warehouse in London in 2008, and then two years later when it transferred to Brooklyn.

“Then there was a bit of space for a year or two, which Tom didn’t know were two very important years.” During that time, Rickman’s health worsened before his eventual death from pancreatic cancer in 2016, aged 69.

Even now, Burke says, “there’s an Alan bit of my brain that’s always there.” He gave an example from when he appeared in an episode of 'The Crown', playing the priest Derek “Dazzle” Jennings opposite Helena Bonham Carter’s Princess Margaret.

“There’s a bit where Helena first sees me down the corridor. The director said, ‘I’d like to see you improvise a bit.’ Then I heard Alan’s voice in my head saying, ‘Dancing should be the first thing they do.’ And they did dance down that corridor. I thought it really set the mood of that relationship.”

“Even if you only met him once, he could become a momentary huge influence in your life. He had a way of asking very penetrating questions, often without necessarily meaning to. People would walk away and make quite big life decisions.” ❤️

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Othello with Denzel Washington You can tell Denzel Washington is comfortable with verse, and that’s appreciated. He’s stronger in the latter half of the play. The pacing is very quick – changes in behavior and emotion happen abruptly. At times, it feels rushed and even slightly comedic. Were they worried about the runtime? Hard to say, but they did cut a solid portion of the text. Jake Gyllenhaal as Iago was a pleasant surprise. He's very, very good, and unlike any Iago I’ve seen before. The age gap between Othello (70) and Desdemona (27) was a bit disturbing, and unfortunately, they had no chemistry at all. Molly Osborne’s Desdemona was different, not the usual blushing, serene type. My s.o. said the whole thing felt a little like a Top Gun version of Shakespeare. Also, what’s the logic of having police uniforms with Italian writing while the flags on stage are American? Rating it 2.5/5 – you expect more when you spend $200 on a ticket. And the most expensive tickets go for over $900.

The Picture of Dorian Gray with Sarah Snook I finally got to see it! The use of technology was genius and refreshing. I haven’t seen anything like it. The use of videos was clever, but they missed the opportunity to really dig into themes like social media and photoshop. The downside of Snook playing all the roles was a lack of chemistry between characters, and a general lack of aestheticism. The production was surprisingly comedic, which threw me. Hearing Wilde's writing delivered almost like slapstick was weird, but educational. Some characters felt overplayed, but I suppose that was the point. I adore the book, so maybe I was bound to be at least a little disappointed. It was definitely less gloomy, decadent, and gothic than I expected. I'm not really sure what they were doing by the end. I think they missed some core points... Still, an impressive performance from Snook overall, she has a solid chance at the Tony. It's daring, and it could have been much worse. Barely managing a 4/5 from me.

Creditors A Strindberg play I’d never seen live before, and I really liked it, despite a few issues with the adaptation. That’s not the adaptor’s fault. It’s a hard play to stage today and structurally tricky to update. The result is a piece that’s quite far from the original text. It was refreshing to see a Strindberg adaptation that strips away a lot of his trademark misogyny. The production dialed the rage all the way up. It was dripping with rage. Lots of emotion, lots of push/pull dynamics, and a lot of Freudian id. Maggie Siff as Tekla was excellent. She was fiery, vivid, and clear, and brought a balance I didn’t know this play needed. Liev Schreiber as Gustav was both brilliant and funny. The contemporary staging worked surprisingly well. And I loved that they didn’t use mics. Still, I prefer Miss Julie. 4/5.

Elmore Bolling, he was too successful.

Elmore Bolling, whose brothers called him Buddy, was a kind of one-man economy in Lowndesboro, Ala. He leased a plantation, where he had a general store with a gas station out front and a catering business; he grew cotton, corn and sugar cane. He also owned a small fleet of trucks that ran livestock and made deliveries between Lowndesboro and Montgomery. At his peak, Bolling employed as many as 40 people, all of them African like him.

One December day in 1947, a group of white men showed up along a stretch of Highway 80 just yards from Bolling’s home and store, where he lived with his wife, Bertha Mae, and their seven young children. The men confronted him on a section of road he had helped lay and shot him seven times — six times with a pistol and once with a shotgun blast to the back. His family rushed from the store to find him lying dead in a ditch.

The shooters didn’t even cover their faces; they didn’t need to. Everyone knew who had done it and why. “He was too successful to be a Negro,” someone who knew Bolling told a newspaper at the time. When Bolling was killed, his family estimates he had as much as $40,000 in the bank and more than $5,000 in assets, about $500,000 in today’s dollars. But within months of his murder nearly all of it would be gone. White creditors and people posing as creditors took the money the family got from the sale of their trucks and cattle. They even staked claims on what was left of the family’s savings. The jobs that he provided were gone, too. Almost overnight the Bollings went from prosperity to poverty. Bertha Mae found work at a dry cleaner. The older children dropped out of school to help support the family. Within two years, the Bollings fled Lowndes County, fearing for their lives.