Pondering the imponderables

[gurdonark]

Listening to Rebecca Pidgeon's Four Marys album today, which is a glittering bit of folk music. During the breaks from my busy work schedule, this gets me pondering. Why would a talented folk artist become nearly entirely an actress in light of her marriage to the playwright and director David Mamet? If I had a gift, and then married someone with a gift in a different field, I cannot imagine switching fields accordingly. I wonder, purely rhetorically, if gender politics play a role in this type of thing? I cannot imagine Meryl Streep's husband, the artist Don Gummer, trying to play the Kevin Bacon role in The River Wild, not that I know anything about Mr. Gummer or his thespian skills.

Then, having created this entire analytical matrix out of the most threadbare cloth, I move on to other matters of state. Why is Rebecca Pidgeon so good in the Winslow Boy and so mediocre in every other movie? What kind of folk musician is David Mamet? Most importantly of all, is it really restful to engage in chance criticism of other peoples' lives, when my list of things to do is still unfinished?

Comments

[nickelchief.livejournal.com]

If someone offered me the chance to act in some pretty good movies with Campbell Scott, Gene Hackman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William Macy, Steve Martin, Nigel Hawthorne, John Gielgud, etc., I would probably not say no! Though who knows, maybe she's really always wanted to be an actress-then-a-singer, rather than a singer-then-an-actress.

I flip-flopped between acting and writing for years before acting lost its allure and I was able to focus just on writing. But I have secretly dreamed of being like Sam Shepard -- earning notice through writing good plays and then getting some pretty meaty acting roles for some reason.

I've seen Mrs. Mamet act (on Broadway, no less) but I've never heard her sing. And I like "glittering folk music." Would you recommend "The Four Marys"?

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think I did read an interview in which she said she was an actress as well as a musician when she met Mamet. I think other of her stuff is more "new folk", but Four Marys is a very nice album. Her voice is not one of those "battleship" voices like a Judy Collins has, nor is it one of those "flat but oh so folky" voices of so many artists. She instead has a spare, melodic but non-resonant voice which is very appealing. I think it's good if you like trad, simple non-poppy stuff (as I do).

I hope you someday get to indulge your inner Sam Shepherd :)