It's a story I've told before, how the composer Arnold Schoenberg, after he'd fled the Nazis and relocated to Southern California was approached by a Hollywood director or producer to compose music for the movie of The Good Earth. Schoenberg's colleague and friend Eduard Steuermann said that he said he was glad he asked for more money than they wanted to pay him, rescuing him from the temptation of becoming a Hollywood hack.
Schoenberg hadn't read the book and he asked what it was about. When they described a scene they'd want music for, of the woman working in the field going in to give birth and then going back out to work in the field he said with great artistic integrity, "Who needs music at a time like that?"
I did lose track of the day of the week last Saturday so I didn't go looking for a play to post and the ongoing crisis made it seem inappropriate the next day. I hope I'll get back to it next week but it's still too soon. Real life right now is providing us with more than drama can. I'm not going to distract from that.
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