Page 31 - ARUBA TODAY

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PEOPLE & ARTS Friday 16 august 2019
Melanie recalls Woodstock concert and not being paid for it

By MESFIN FEKADU believed that everyone 2019 Experience in West
Associated Press was going to get up and go Jefferson, North Carolina.
NEW YORK (AP) — Melanie, home. It's raining, I'm free, The two-weekend affair,
known as the First Lady of I'll go back to life as it was. which kicked off last week
Woodstock, remembers Maybe I will be an archae- and starts again Friday,
having a supernatural ex- ologist; maybe I will join the features performers such
perience as she walked on Peace Corps. That's when as Jefferson Starship, Ten
the rainy stage in 1969 to they said, 'You're next.'" Years After, John Sebastian
perform at one of the most The Incredible String Band and Canned Heat.
iconic events of all-time, was supposed to go on- An estimated 400,000 peo-
though iconic isn't how stage, but "they had con- ple showed up for the origi-
anyone would have de- cerns about electrocution," nal festival on upstate New
scribed the day back then. Melanie recalled. York farmland Aug. 15-18,
"I had an out-of-body expe- "I didn't know about electric 1969.
rience and I wasn't altered yet," she said. "I just went on "Fifty years later and I am
by drugs," she recalled. and my life was never the the embodiment of the
She was just 22 when she same. A complete spiritual spirit of Woodstock. I saw
performed at the historic awakening." what happened. People
concert that also included Melanie, whose hits in- came together in a way
Jimi Hendrix, the Grate- clude "Brand New Key" In this Aug. 15, 1998, file photo, Melanie Safka, who performed that you see this when a ca-
at the original Woodstock decades ago, opens the second day
ful Dead and Joan Baez. and "Lay Down (Candles of the festival "Day In The Garden," in Bethel, N.Y. tastrophe happens, people
Melanie had been waiting in the Rain)," was one of Associated Press band together; they sort of
for hours and hours to per- the few female perform- overcome amazing ob-
form, sitting on the side of ers at Woodstock. She said Oh, this group is coming.' Melanie was set to perform stacles. That's the spirit of
the stage as she watched though Woodstock is re- I guess because people at Woodstock co-founder what was going on. I expe-
Richie Havens and others membered as a ground- were pulling out, canceling Michael Lang's axed 50th- rienced it and I can't let go
complete their sets. breaking concert, "the last because they knew that it anniversary concert this of it," she said.
"The terror kept building thing that I thought was was chaos." year (Lang said all of the art- "At one point I figured, you
in me. The thought of me that it would become a his- "Very few people got paid, ists were paid in full despite know, I am in the service
performing in front of all toric event." unless the agency was the event's cancellation). industry here. I do fulfill a
of those people and that "People would say things representing them," the But Melanie's still celebrat- little bit, I get those people,
huge stage — I was all by like, 'Oh, Bob Dylan's com- 72-year-old added. "A lot ing Woodstock's birthday they're in front of me, and
myself," she said. "Then it ing. Oh no, he's not. May- of us didn't. I never made a at another concert honor- we all go to a higher place.
started to rain and I truly be this group was coming. penny from Woodstock." ing the event's legacy: WE That's all there is to it."q

Gyllenhaal attributes conquering fear to Oscar-winning doc

By JOHN CARUCCI stage you're pretending
Associated Press to be in a room and pre-
NEW YORK (AP) — Few per- tending like you're in Rus-
formances are as daunting sia and 1920s and you're
as the one-person play. pretending the audience
That's why Jake Gyllen- don't exist. But with this, I'm
haal had to find a way to having a conversation with
conquer that fear when real people who are dif-
he took on the role of Abe ferent every night. And if
in the second half of "Sea I blow a line, then we just
Wall/A Life." change the conversation,"
"Before I did it, I was ter- Sturridge said. "Sea Wall/A
rified," Gyllenhaal said of Life," a pair of plays written
"A Life," after the play's by Nick Payne and Simon
Broadway opening. Tom Stephens, respectively are
Sturridge stars in "Sea Wall," tragic comedies that deal
the other half of the pair of with love and loss.
one-act monologues. Gyllenhaal says the emo-
Gyllenhaal admits that ner- tional value shifts with each
vousness extended to the audience.
rehearsal room. But then "It's very emotional through
he found confidence in an all of it. But it changes every
unlikely place. The story of night. It's different. Some-
Alex Honnold's 3,000-foot In this June 17, 2019 file photo, actor Jake Gyllenhaal poses for photographers upon arrival at the times I'm telling the story,
(914-meter) climb of the El photo call for 'Spiderman: Far From Home' in London. I'm just telling it. Sometimes
Capitan rock formation at Associated Press things happen. Sometimes
Yosemite National Park. I hear someone in the au-
"I was sort of quaking in ing documentary, and I sailing. Both actors say the lack of dience have an emotional
my boots thinking about it. thought to myself, if he can It was a little different for an onstage partner to play response. He was laughing
Then I saw 'Free Solo,' that do that without any rope I Sturridge. "I feel like weirdly off of can add to the stress; or crying, and it makes me
documentary about the can do a monologue. And - like before I walk on stage there isn't a safety net if you feel something," he said.
free climber Alex Honnold then that was it," Gyllen- I feel fear. But I feel safest blow a line. But Sturridge "Sea Wall/A Life" plays on
that won the Academy haal said. on the stage," Sturridge uses the audience. Broadway at the Hudson
Award. Amazing, amaz- From then on, it was smooth said. "Normally when you're on Theater until Sept. 29.q