City Voices

LANDGREN THE CITY MAY RUN SCHOOL BUSES, BUT WHO WILL DRIVE THEM?

FIRST PERSON

Hanover’s ‘Caesar’ inspires a deep dive into history, literature

Randy Feldman

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

I recently went to see the new Hanover Theatre Repertory production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” set behind Worcester City Hall. The action was performed in front of and within the Oval in Worcester Common, which originates from 1669; a place where Isaiah Thomas publicly read the Declaration of Independence on July 14, 1776.

The 1898 ornately constructed City Hall was a star of the show. Its glamour shined as its façade and balcony was lit up as a decorative backdrop in hues of pink and shadows of light, dark and color, with Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” performed below.

It was actually a moment in Worcester history. It was that good. It reminds us of when “West Side Story” was performed at Green Hill Park and covered by the national news show, “60 Minutes,” or the opening night of The Hanover Theatre, or the first time one walks into Polar Park to attend a WooSox game.

Not only was it cool, it was also important. Worcester having a true repertory company putting on iconic, meaningful

WORCESTERIA

Joyner Lucas appears in the music video, “Dreams Unfold.” YOUTUBE SCREEN CAPTURE

Joyner Lucas’ vanishing video, Maureen Binienda battles shadowy foes

Victor D. Infante

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

‘DREAMS’ DEFERRED: Ah, the power of a cryptic social media post. When Joyner Lucas tweeted, “What, y’all tryin’ to sensor(sp) me,” Thursday, the internet freaked out a little bit. That tweet seems to have been taken down, but a subsequent Facebook post seems to indicate that he’s referring to a controversy around his new video, “Dreams Unfold,” featuring rapper Lil Tjay. It seems there was an uproar over the video and how it parodied children’s television, with Lucas –who will be headlining Joyner Fest Sept. 5 outdoors at the Palladium – and Tjay portraying archetypical children’s TV characters and peddling drugs, violence and pornography to kids. It starts with a disclaimer that says, “This video is not suitable for children,” and ends with the words, “Let’s be better role models.” It’s kind of hard to trace the roots of the controversy, but while a lot of early responders seemed to get it, there was evidently enough uproar to have the official video pulled from YouTube. (It’s unclear at this writing whether that was a decision by YouTube or Lucas’ team.) Still, the message – that hip-hop knowingly traffics unhealthy subject matter to kids – seems pretty self-evident, but we live in sadly literal times, and satire just doesn’t seem to sink in anymore.

‘CAESAR’ INTERRUPTED: We had a nice letter from local disability activist Deb Ellstrom, who enjoyed our capsule review of ‘Julius Caesar’

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

WoMag is haven for left-wing fanatics

Joseph Gustafson

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Worcester Magazine is a haven for left-wing fanatics who are obsessed with race and gender. They have writers, mostly from Clark, (Moscow U.) who still think the protesters at the Capitol were white supremacists. On the contrary, they were patriots trying to stop a rigged election in four Democrat states.

The courts decided to pass instead of looking at the obvious evidence of ballot tempering. So we now have an illegal president running the country who is brain deficient and totally incompetent. He’s making Donald Trump look like a rock start. Trump will win the next presidential election and restore democracy to the USA, where all people are treated equally regardless of race, gender or disability.

Joseph Gustafson lives in Leicester.

Objection to portrayal of Biden

Constantino Tata

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

An article recently referred to President Biden destroying America. It amazes me the way Trump supporters accuse the Democrats of doing the very things that Trump and the Republicans are doing. He said the following.

Border Security: He accuses President Biden of inviting the aliens in when history shows that President Biden publicly said “Do not come”. He also states they are bringing the virus but in fact they are tested and given the vaccine. About 30% refuse it so about 70% get it.

Crime: He mentioned that crime wave began with the Portland riots. He forgets that those riots began under the Trump administration.

Fair Elections: He states The President’s goal is fixing elections. It is the Republicans who are passing hundreds of voter suppression bills while the Democrats are seeing that everyone gets to vote. He complains about the support checks but does not mention that the first checks came from the Trump administration.

Energy: He objects to renewable energy sources when the fossil fuels are destroying our environment.

Foreign Policy: He mentions the Afghanistan withdrawal in a negative way but the withdrawal was negotiated by the Trump administration. Biden merely enforced Trump’s agreement with the Taliban.

Biden’s plan for America, regain the respect we lost under the Trump regime. BTW, President Biden never encouraged his supporters to attack the Congress. He never encouraged them to interfere with the poll workers during the election. He never lied to the voters about the election. Trump did all those things.

Constantino Tata lives in Southbridge.

HARVEY

Anti-vaxxers are last straw for stressed educators, health care workers

Janice Harvey

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

What if all the people who became nurses, doctors and teachers decided to quit?

I’m serious. People leave jobs because of unfair treatment, lousy pay, safety issues and countless other reasons. Most people can be replaced — it’s a sad truth, but most jobs can be filled without much fuss. But not all.

What if all the teachers with more than 25 years of experience decided to toss in the towel, collect their pensions with a percentage cut, and become WalMart greeters? Many veteran educators have chosen to live with the cut as opposed to risking exposure to a deadly virus and clashes with antivaxxers. Could newbies handle the mask/no mask nightmare? “Green” teachers have to spin many plates on a stick without throwing pandemic politics into the mix — low starting pay, administrative power struggles and standardized testing are just some of the plates they have to keep spinning. More than 44% of new teachers leave the profession within the first five years — currently 1 in 4 teachers are expected to leave their jobs compared to 1 in 6 who were likely to hit the bricks prior to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s no picnic, teaching kids who fell behind during quarantine, reaching the ones who were behind the eight ball to begin with because of dysfunctional family situations, and wrestling with parents who might be against mask-wearing. Could you do it? Many try, and leave the profession in the best of times because of the stress.

Since January of 2020, doctors and nurses have been burning out faster than birthday candles. Just when it looked like COVID-19 might be controlled, the unvaccinated among us rolled out the welcome mat to the Delta variant. Medical teams who were barely able to catch a breath between patients have been bombarded yet again. Who could blame any of them if they tore off their scrubs and headed home? How they work with people who denied science yet expect science to save them, I’ll never know. Burnout rates in nursing were at 40% before the pandemic, and as of January of 2021, that figured had blossomed to 70%. Medical staffers are certainly better than I am — I don’t have the patience, tolerance or willingness. (Not to mention my inability to do any of the amazing things they do every day. I almost passed out in Mrs. Falvey’s biology class when the frog was dissected.) But what if they all said, “ I’m done,” and became wallpaper hangers and landscapers?

My point is this: These are the most indispensable humans on the planet. They chose to serve humanity, and spent a boatload of money educating themselves so that they’d be able to do exactly that. Teachers endure snarky remarks about having “summers off ” made by people who don’t acknowledge that many attend professional development to improve their skills during hiatus, or work summer programs to keep kids on track. These same critics don’t bother to understand what a pro rata salary entails.

The idea that medical personnel are paid well enough to be worked to the point of exhaustion is maddening. Nothing of what teachers, nurses and doctors are experiencing is “what they signed up for” despite what they are told by ignorant rubes. No one signs up for working through a pandemic when choosing a career path. Here’s an idea — maybe it’s time we stop taking for granted the people who keep our kids learning and our loved ones breathing. Maybe it’s time for everyone to get vaccinated and mask up so that we don’t drive all the selfless givers out the door. It’s just a thought.

“What if all the teachers with more than 25 years of experience decided to toss in the towel, collect their pensions with a percentage cut, and become WalMart greeters? “

ALEXANDRA KOCH

Video

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on the Worcester Common. “I agree wholeheartedly,” she writes, “and I’ve been encouraging friends – even folk from east of here – to attend. I’m so glad I got to see it – at least, through intermission. The last bus back to my area leaves Franklin at 9:25 PM on Saturday evenings (an hour earlier during the week), so I couldn’t stay through to the end. I’m glad, though, to see what I could. Several friends, whom I encouraged to attend, sent me thanks and glowing reviews, as well.” Ellstrom is gracious as ever, but we can’t help but think there’s a problem when the city is presenting free art and the public transportation situation prohibits access to it from many who would most benefit from a free production of that caliber. Obviously, these are challenging times, but the city has a lot of amazing things happening … it’s just a matter of thinking through the process of how best to provide access to them.

BACK TO SCHOOL?: I’ll be the first to admit that, as a person who does not have children, I don’t follow local education issues as closely as I should, but I can’t help but be struck by the way Superintendent Maureen Binienda and her allies have taken to characterizing criticism of her. First, former mayor Raymond V. Mariano wrote, in a column in the Telegram & Gazette, that the mayor and the City Council “have been trying to force her out quietly and outside of the public’s view. According to several sources familiar with the discussions, Superintendent Maureen Binienda, whose contract will end next year on June 30, was told not to seek a contract extension and to ‘just leave quietly.’ In private and at an executive session of the School Committee, it was clear that many members wanted Binienda to be replaced.” Mariano implies that this is some sort of shady backroom maneuver, which seems to be stretching things. Then, in response to School Committee candidate Jermoh Kamara’s public assertion that Binienda needs to be replaced, the superintendent replied that, “It’s not like her to come out and say a statement like that unless coached to say a statement like that … I think I was very instrumental in Jermoh being successful in her development, I gave her a ride to school every day.” A trend has begun to emerge in the discussion, that critics are a Super-Secret Shadowy Illuminati and their puppets, and then they point toward longstanding personal relationships. Without getting into policy issues – and Binienda has been divisive on a number of issues, from sex education to the adapting to remote learning during the pandemic – there are a couple of points to be made here. First, you can like someone personally and have policy differences with them. That some of Binienda’s opponents are expressing dissent despite a personal relationship is a sign of a system working, not the other way around. It is literally the antithesis of the old-school neighborhood politics that have often plagued Worcester politics. Also, there seems to be an inference from Binienda’s camp that her critics have been silent until now, which is categorically untrue. Both her critics and defenders have been quite vocal for years, to the point where even a casual observer was aware of their existence and positions. There are no shadowy conspiracies here to be found, except for the Lizard People who live beneath City Hall and secretly control the WRTA to deny Shakespeare to the poor.

Caesar

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dramas (instead of splashy musicals) is hugely significant in creating a cosmopolitan culture, as Hanover Rep showed with its novel, interchangeable-gender version of the play.

I actually saw the play three times. The first time I couldn’t really follow the dialogue so I decided to read three versions of the play, an old Del, Laurel Shakespeare version published in 1960 (which sold for 35 cents) the Signet classic version and the Folger Shakespeare Library version. I found it more elucidating to read the commentary about the play so I read each version’s introduction, overview afterward and commentaries preceding and following the play.

I learned so much about Shakespeare, Rome and Julius Caesar that I then “went to the movies” digging into my DVD collection. First I watched the classic movie “Cleopatra,” then the movie of the play “Antony and Cleopatra,” then “Ben Hur,” “Quo Vadis” and “Spartacus” to get a better idea about the Romans, then to learn what Caesar’s and Roman leaders were trying to imitate I watched “Alexander” (the Great) by Oliver Stone. To know Shakespeare better I again watched the phenomenal movie, “Shakespeare in Love.”

Lastly, I viewed and listened to lectures from the Teaching Company, the Great Course series on the great Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius and Edward Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” I learned that in issues of political leadership the U.S. and Roman Empires share some things in common.

All this reading, watching, and learning was inspired by the Hanover Repertory Company’s performing Shakespeare “Julius Caesar” for our community. Thank you.

Randy Feldman lives in Worcester.

The Hanover Theatre Repertory put on a free production of “Julius Caesar” on the steps of City Hall. ASHLEY GREEN/TELEGRAM & GAZETTE