Humanism and Sustainability

Back in 2009 I went for training at the United Nations Centre in Vienna, Austria.  This was to be certified in being a consultant for the United Nation’s Global Compact within the developing countries.  This was the only agency of the United Nations that is tasked with promoting businesses in the developing countries.  Developing Countries are those countries who are more economically stable than the Least Developed Countries, but are not at the level of the Most Developed Countries like the US.  Least Developed Countries is a preferred name to “Third World Countries” which sound like they are “Third Class Countries.  I had a mentor, a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize on year, who preferred calling them “Two-Thirds World Countries” as that was a better representation. 

Shortly after I returned, I wrote this blog but didn’t have a blogging site at that time.  So I am including it here and now.  This will be used as a basis for several blogs I plan to publish on the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) for the their 2015 and Beyond program scheduled to replace the Millenium Development Goals for the civil sector combined with their Global Compact for the business sector.

Humanism and Sustainability

I have just returned from one week of intensive training for Sustainability consulting and Sustainability reporting for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs).  This was through the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna, Austria.  UNIDO is the only United Nations agency tasked with developing jobs and work opportunities in the developing countries.  (The other agencies, like UNICEF, WHO, etc give aid and assistance to people in the least developed countries.)  Of the 20 attendees, 4 were from Croatia, 3 were from Bosnia, and one each from several countries including Ecuador, Moldova, Ukraine, Greece, Austria, Germany, etc.  I was the only representative from the United States and was also the only one there not involved in consulting in a developing country.  I was there not because of my job, but just because I have become very involved in many aspects of the United Nations as a personal interest and as a hobby – especially with their Global Compact.  As such, I have become quite involved with the United Nations Global Compact which is the UN’s work with the business sector in assuring that businesses are run in a Sustainable fashion.

As a quick explanation of business Sustainability, it is determining how a business should operate now so that it will be viable 50 years from now.  (Later, I will discuss how this can apply to us as individuals who are Humanists.)  This approach has evolved to be centered on what is called Triple Bottom Line Accountability (TBL)  Instead of just “the bottom line” of a business, which infers just the financial bottom line, TBL includes a bottom line accountability of Environmental and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).  (Triple Bottom Line accountability is also known as Profit/Planet/People accountability for those who like alliterations.)  A company is not considered a viable company if it is successful financially, but irresponsible environmentally.  At the same time, a company cannot do something for the environmental that is good if that means it will fail financially.  The same is true with Corporate Social Responsibility.  A company must operate responsibly in all three areas.

A company must perform environmentally in such a way that it will be viable in the future – that is, it cannot be depleting resources which will adversely impact the business later.  As an example, I work for a large Fortune 200 company.  They performed an energy audit and discovered that they could not continue to use their energy resources in the same trend and be viable later.  They discovered that within 25 years, between the increase in energy consumption and the increase in energy prices, they would not be viable.  They would not be able to afford the energy that would be consumed if they did not resort to energy conservation and/or energy alternatives.  And they can look at other environmental aspects and see that they need to change their whole approach to include issues such as recycling, etc.

The same was true with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).  CSR involves both the external stakeholders (shareholders, supply chain companies, customers, etc.) as well as internal stakeholders (employees and middle management).  They discovered that projecting ahead 50 years, they would not be able to draw on the available workforce the people they would need unless they changed.  There will not be the demographics of white, male engineers available for them.  So they have instituted many changes to become an “Employer of Choice” to appeal to many of the minority groups, and women.  They have also seen that of the four generations of workers now in the work force, the youngest generation is motivated most by “making a difference”.  The younger generation wants to work in jobs where they can make a difference (in the environment or socially) and/or work for a company that is socially and environmentally responsible.  My company has also seen that to be the Employer of Choice, they must reach out and become a sustaining member of the community – not as PR efforts, but as sincere efforts to remain viable.

These assumptions of environmental and social responsibility are because of business sense and not because they are showing themselves to be “progressive” or a “tree-hugger”.  The shareholders are demanding that companies be more transparent so that the investors can see how a company is operating in a sustainable fashion.  Investors want to make sure a company is not operating in an unsustainable manner and so TBL has become a business imperative.  I have been told that the SEC is thinking of requiring companies to publish an annual Sustainability Report by the year 2015.

How does this apply to us as individuals who are Humanists?  As a Humanist, I have the ability and the responsibility to develop all that it means to be human both in myself and in others.  This definition includes the word “responsibility”.  Humanism is more than a belief system, it is also a value system and one of our values should be Responsibility. 

As a Humanist, I have a responsibility to my environment.  There is a Native American saying that says “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”  As Humanists, we need to insure that the environment will be just as viable for our future generations as it is now.  There is a movement in some of the religious circles (especially among the young) that mankind has a caretaker responsibility assigned by a god.  We don’t need to take this direction from a god to recognize our own responsibility for environmental sustainability.  We can be good without a god and we can and should do the right thing environmentally.

And as a Humanist, we should recognize our social responsibility.  We have the responsibility to do what we can to care for the vulnerables in our society, to narrow the gap between the haves and the have-nots, to care for those who are in our first degree of separation (family and friends) as well as those who are six degrees separated from us.  To sustain the global society, we need to recognize our responsibilities in all of our social milieus.  The continuation of the increase of the gap between the haves and the have-nots is not sustainable.

It is striking to see how Business Sustainability has become so prevalent in Europe while only beginning to be used here in the States.  (If I had not known beforehand how much more prevalent this is in Europe, it would have been embarrassing for me as a person from the United States at this training session.)  Although many of the top Fortune US companies are now publishing annual Sustainability Reports, it is a concept that has not become popular in the United States culture like it has in Europe – even in the European developing countries formerly of the Soviet Union.  The whole concept is part of the general vernacular in Europe and several European CEOs were meeting and discussing what they could do to attract the best talent.  They came to the decision that although most young people looking for a job do not read the company’s annual Financial Report, almost all of them (in Europe) will read the company’s annual Sustainability Report.  Over there, in order to broaden the scope of the approach beyond that of corporations, they are now using the term Responsibility Reporting.

Perhaps we as Humanists should include Responsibility Reporting as some of our Key Performance Indicators at the individual level.  Imagine the branding image if Humanists were known for their Environmental responsibilities and their Social responsibilities as so many more businesses are becoming known.

David Kimball

Obama's Eulogy of Nelson Mandela

If you are like me, you can absorb and retain and assimilate much more by hearing and at the same time reading.  So here is a link to Obama's eulogy of Nelson Mandela and also a transcript.  (It's rather hard to hear amid all the cheering.)

Here is link to the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SggOsfjsL0c

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA

AT MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR FORMER SOUTH AFRICAN

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA

First National Bank Stadium

Johannesburg, South Africa

1:31 P.M. SAST

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you so much. Thank you. To Graça Machel and the Mandela family; to PresidentZuma and members of the government; to heads of states and government, past and present; distinguished guests -- it is a singular honor to be with you today, to celebrate a life like no other. To the people of South Africa -- (applause) -- people of every race and walk of life --the world thanks you for sharing Nelson Mandela with us. His struggle was your struggle. His triumph was your triumph. Your dignity andyour hope found expression in his life. And your freedom, your democracy is his cherished legacy.  It is hard to eulogize any man -- to capture in words not just the facts and the dates that make a life, but the essential truth of a person -- their private joys and sorrows; the quiet moments and unique qualities that illuminate someone’s soul. How much harder to do so for a giant of history, who moved a nation toward justice, and in the process moved billions around the world.

Born during World War I, far from the corridors of power, a boy raised herding cattle and tutored by the elders of his Thembu tribe, Madiba would emerge as the last great liberator of the 20thcentury. Like Gandhi, he would lead a resistance movement – a movement that at its start had little prospect for success. Like Dr. King, he would give potent voice to the claims of the oppressed and the moral necessity of racial justice. He would endure a brutal imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Khrushchev, and reached the final days of the Cold War. Emerging from prison, without the force of arms, he would -- like Abraham Lincoln -- hold his country together when it threatened to break apart. And like America’s Founding Fathers, he would erect a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations -- a commitment to democracy and rule of law ratified not only by his election, but by his willingness to stepdown from power after only one term.

Given the sweep of his life, the scope of his accomplishments, the adoration that he so rightly earned, it’s tempting I think to remember Nelson Mandela as an icon, smiling and serene, detached from the tawdry affairs of lesser men. But Madiba himself strongly resisted such alifeless portrait. (Applause.) Instead, Madiba insisted on sharingwith us his doubts and his fears; his miscalculations along with his victories. “I am not a saint,” he said, “unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”

It was precisely because he could admit to imperfection – because he could be so full of good humor, even mischief, despite the heavy burdens he carried -- that we loved him so. He was not a bust made of marble; he was a man of flesh and blood -- a son and a husband, a father and a friend. And that’s why we learned so much from him, and that’s why we can learn from him still. For nothing he achieved was inevitable. In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness, and persistence and faith. He tells us what is possible not just in the pages of history books, but in our own lives as well.

Mandela showed us the power of action; of taking risks on behalf of our ideals. Perhaps Madiba was right that he inherited, “a proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness” from his father. And we know he shared with millions of black and colored South Africans the anger born of, “a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments…a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people,” he said.

But like other early giants of the ANC -- the Sisulus and Tambos -- Madiba disciplined his anger and channeled his desire to fight into organization, and platforms, and strategies for action, so men and women could stand up for their God-given dignity. Moreover, he accepted the consequences of his actions, knowing that standing up to powerful interests and injustice carries a price. “I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I’ve cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and [with] equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” (Applause.)

Mandela taught us the power of action, but he also taught us the power of ideas; the importance of reason and arguments; the need to study not only those who you agree with, but also those who you don’t agree with. He understood that ideas cannot be contained by prison walls, or extinguished by a sniper’s bullet. He turned his trial into an indictment of apartheid because of his eloquence and his passion, but also because of his training as an advocate. He used decades in prison to sharpen his arguments, but also to spread his thirst for knowledge to others in the movement. And he learned the language and the customs of his oppressor so that one day he might better convey to them how their own freedom depend upon his. (Applause.)

Mandela demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough. No matter how right, they must be chiseled into law and institutions. He was practical, testing his beliefs against the hard surface of circumstance and history. On core principles he was unyielding, which is why he could rebuff offers of unconditional release, reminding the Apartheid regime that “prisoners cannot enter into contracts.”

But as he showed in painstaking negotiations to transfer power and draft new laws, he was not afraid to compromise for the sake of a larger goal. And because he was not only a leader of a movement but a skillful politician, the Constitution that emerged was worthy of this multiracial democracy, true to his vision of laws that protect minority as well as majority rights, and the precious freedoms of every South African.

And finally, Mandela understood the ties that bind the human spirit. There is a word in South Africa -- Ubuntu -- (applause) – a word that captures Mandela’s greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.

We can never know how much of this sense was innate in him, or how much was shaped in a dark and solitary cell. But we remember the gestures, large and small -- introducing his jailers as honored guests at his inauguration; taking a pitch in a Springbok uniform; turning his family’s heartbreak into a call to confront HIV/AIDS -- that revealed the depth of his empathy and his understanding. He not only embodied Ubuntu, he taught millions to find that truth within themselves.  It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well -- (applause) -- to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion and generosity and truth. He changed laws, but he also changed hearts.

For the people of South Africa, for those he inspired around the globe, Madiba’s passing is rightly a time of mourning, and a time to celebrate a heroic life. But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection. With honesty, regardless of our station or our circumstance, we must ask: How well have I applied his lessons in my own life? It’s a question I ask myself, as a man and as a President.  We know that, like South Africa, the United States had to overcome centuries of racial subjugation. As was true here, it took sacrifice -- the sacrifice of countless people, known and unknown, to see the dawn of a new day. Michelle and I are beneficiaries of that struggle.  (Applause.) But in America, and in South Africa, and in countries all around the globe, we cannot allow our progress to cloud the fact that our work is not yet done.

The struggles that follow the victory of formal equality or universal franchise may not be as filled with drama and moral clarity as those that came before, but they are no less important. For around the world today, we still see children suffering from hunger and disease. We still see run-down schools. We still see young peoplewithout prospects for the future. Around the world today, men and women are still imprisoned for their political beliefs, and are still persecuted for what they look like, and how they worship, and who they love.  That is happening today.  (Applause.)

And so we, too, must action behalf of justice. We, too, must act on behalf of peace. There are too many people who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality. There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from theirown people. (Applause.) And there are too many of us on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard.

The questions we face today -- how to promote equality and justice; how to uphold freedom and human rights; how to end conflict and sectarian war -- these things do not have easy answers. But there were no easy answers in front of that child born in World War I. Nelson Mandela reminds us that it always seems impossible until it is done. South Africa shows that is true.  South Africa shows we can change, that we can choose a world defined not by our differences, but by our common hopes. We can choose a world defined not by conflict, but by peace and justice and opportunity.

We will never see the likes of Nelson Mandela again. But let me say to the young people of Africa and the young people around the world-- you, too, can make his life’s work your own. Over 30 years ago, while still a student, I learned of Nelson Mandela and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land, and it stirred something in me. It woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself, and it set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today. And while I will always fall short of Madiba’s example, he makes me want to be a better man. (Applause.) He speaks to what’s best inside us.

After this great liberator is laid to rest, and when we have returned to our cities and villages and rejoined our daily routines, let us search for his strength. Let us search for his largeness of spirit somewhere inside of ourselves. And when the night grows dark, when injustice weighs heavy on our hearts, when our best-laid plans seem beyond our reach, let us think of Madiba and the words that brought him comfort within the four walls of his cell: “It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

What a magnificent soul it was. We will miss him deeply. May God bless the memory of Nelson Mandela. May God bless the people of South Africa. (Applause.)

END 1:50 P.M. SAST

Emily Dickinson’s Refusal to “Be Saved”

Today, Dec 10, is the birthday of Emily Dickinson.  (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2013%2F12%2F10%3Frefid%3D0&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+writersalmanac+(APM%3A+Garrison+Keillor's+The+Writer's+Almanac+RSS+Feed)

I found it very interesting to find out about Dickinson’s experience at Mt Holyoke Academy.  She was born in 1830 and went there for only one year when she was 16 years old.  By then, the Mt Holyoke Seminary, one of the first for women, was already 10 years old.  But religion so infested the campus that the students were labelled as one of three categories:  Those who declared their faith; Those who had hope of conversion; and those who were considered “no hope”.  Dickinson fell into the third group with “no hope”.

Before attending, she seemed to be full of life and truly celebrating life.  However, after only one year at Mt Holyoke, her demeanor seemed completely changed.  Of course it didn’t help that this was the time of the Second Great Awakening of religion in America and so all of her friends even outside of Mt Holyoke were also ”finding” religion.  She wrote:  “How lonely this world is growing, something so desolate creeps over the spirit and we don't know its name, and it won't go away, either Heaven is seeming greater, or Earth a great deal more small [...] Christ is calling everyone here, all my companions have answered, even my darling Vinnie believes she loves, and trusts him, and I am standing alone in rebellion, and growing very careless. Abby, Mary, Jane, and farthest of all my Vinnie have been seeking, and they all believe they have found; I can't tell you what they have found, but they think it is something precious. I wonder if it is?"

Yet she was able to also write:  “There is a great deal of religious interest here and many are flocking to the ark of safety. I have not yet given up to the claims of Christ, but trust I am not entirely thoughtless on so important & serious a subject.”

And she was able to write and become famous for her skepticism and wrote this poem:

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church – (236)

BY EMILY DICKINSON

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –

I keep it, staying at Home –

With a Bobolink for a Chorister –

And an Orchard, for a Dome –

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –

I, just wear my Wings –

And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,

Our little Sexton – sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman –

And the sermon is never long,

So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –

I’m going, all along.

I Don’t Want to be Labelled a “Humanist” 

What is a label but a gauzy screen hiding the reality and truth giving us impressions rather than distinctions?  Labels only obfuscate issues and allow for miscommunications when communications are most important.  Labels are good for broad-brush descriptions or discussions from the “50,000 foot level”.  What does the label “Humanist” mean to different people if not different concepts?  I cannot know that a person to whom I am speaking knows the definition according to the American Humanist Association (AHA) or in Wikipedia. 

But what is the alternative if I am unwilling to be labelled a Humanist?  I need to be prepared to offer my own definition of what it means to me to be a Humanist.  I have defined a philosopher as one who has thought about an issue enough that they are confident to offer their own definitions.  (Can you see that I’ve thought about this?  Smile)  I need to think about what it means to be a Humanist to the point where I can come up with my own elevator speech and define it myself whenever I use it with someone who does not know me well enough to know what I mean.

While many people think that if everyone comes up with their own definition, then we lose the power of communicating with others.  But the opposite is actually true.  We communicate less of the truth when we rely on accepted labels (especially misunderstood labels) than when we are prepared to define them in the immediate discussion.  Defining our own terms assures better and more thorough dialogue than resorting to labels where they mean different things to each listener. 

To me, Humanism is the belief that I have the ability and the responsibility to do all that I can to develop all that it means to be human both in myself and in others.  And from this definition, I am ready to parse it and expound on “belief”, “ability”, “responsibility”, “all that I can”, “develop”, “all that it means to be human”, and “both in myself and in others”. 

And this is a major difference between my being a Humanist and someone who is a religionist of whatever persuasion.  As a Humanist, I believe that I am the top of the value-chain and there is nothing higher than me and my human nature that I need to identify with in defining my values and definitions.  This is what it means to “honor” one’s human nature and to honor the human-ness in another person.  I must honor that person, their nature, their definitions, and their values and not some “label” that is considered higher or above that person and is responsible for dictating these values and definitions to that person. 

And so I need to constantly ask another person what they mean when they say they are a “Christian”, or a “Theist”, or a “Republican”, or a “Democrat”, or a “Liberal”, or a “Conservative” or “into Sustainability” or a “Global Citizen”.  No issue is based on how we are labelled, or even by what we “are”, but rather by what we “use”.  What definitions do we use?  What values do we use?  What rationales do we use?  What motivations do we use?  What we use are the parts that make us human and those are what we should develop – both in ourselves and in others. 

David Kimball

Awards - Tonys 2013 - Musicals - Motown

MOTOWN

From the New York Times

The hit parade reels on seemingly forever in “Motown: The Musical,” a dramatically slapdash but musically vibrant trip back to the glory days of Detroit, where the vinyl pouring out of an unassuming two-story house took the world by storm, all but paving the city’s streets with gold records.

Before we’ve even settled in our seats, we’re being dazzled by a sing-off between the Four Tops and the Temptations. Gladys Knight and the Pips andMarvin Gaye later tear into their dueling versions of the enduring classic “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” (Don’t make me choose, please: I couldn’t live without either.) Snapping their fingers and smoothly wriggling their hips, Diana Ross and the Supremes bop through several of their ear-tickling hits.

There’s Smokey Robinson, too, and Stevie Wonder, Martha and the Vandellas, and Mary Wells. Something close to rapture spreads through the audience when a magical little dynamo, the young Michael Jackson, takes the stage, spinning like a tiny top and singing with a grown man’s soul in his little boy’s voice box.

These performers are obviously not appearing at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, where Broadway’s latest jukebox musical opened Sunday night. Instead, their indelible styles are being effectively recreated by a blazing cast of gifted singers impersonating this crowded pantheon of pop-chart immortals. Our tour guide on this busy joy ride through the Motor City of the late 1960s and ’70s, and the show’s principal character, is Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records. Mr. Gordy wrote the book for the musical (adapted from his 1994 autobiography), and his recollections of the era and the artists he discovered form the shaky scaffolding for a musical that is, if nothing else, an efficient endorphin-delivery system for baby boomers.

The story begins at the end, in 1983, when a television special celebrating the Motown legacy is being prepared as a disgruntled Berry (Brandon Victor Dixon) broods in his Los Angeles home, waffling about whether to participate. He’s bruised by the company’s decline, which has been hastened by the departure of many acts he discovered, groomed and elevated into stardom. A few left lawsuits behind as parting gifts. (Although Berry mostly comes across as a heroic figure bordering on saintly, to Mr. Gordy’s credit — and that of the show’s script consultants, David Goldsmith and Dick Scanlan — his conflicts with various artists are not entirely scrubbed from this unofficial record.)

The musical, mechanically directed by Charles Randolph-Wright, then flashes back to the beginnings, when a young Berry — Junior to his large, loyal and loving family — is casting about for a career. A brief stab at boxing fizzles (cuing one of the show’s few — and unfortunate — original songs), and soon Berry is calling on his family’s money to back his dream of creating a record company. He’s already written and sold a couple of songs to Jackie Wilson (a funny Eric LaJuan Summers), but only by owning publishing rights and producing records can real money be made.

More than 50 songs (!) are performed in “Motown,” usually, alas, in truncated versions. Most are simply presented as concert versions by the actors playing the artists who made them famous, but a few are shoehorned awkwardly into the story as “book” songs.

Sometimes the fit seems right, as when Berry serenades his family to the tune of “Money (That’s What I Want),” best known in the Beatles version. Elsewhere, the fit is forced, if not ludicrous. “You’re All I Need to Get By” is performed by Mr. Dixon’s Berry as a duet with Diana Ross (a silky Valisia LeKae) in which they pledge their love. (Never mind that it was recorded by Gaye and Tammi Terrell.) Stranger still, after Diana and Berry are found in bed after an unsuccessful attempt at lovemaking, she leaps up and begins singing “I Hear a Symphony.” It’s like a parody of a Viagra commercial.

Making way for so much music means that “Motown” breezily scrimps on storytelling. Characters come and go so quickly we barely have time to register their famous names, let alone get to know them. Stevie Wonder is introduced as a talented tyke in Act I but doesn’t reappear until the second act, fully grown at the keyboards, singing in Washington to promote the creation of a holiday dedicated to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (“Damn, our little Stevie, making history,” Berry opines with cornball sincerity.) The relationship between Berry and Diana moves to the foreground at various intervals, but even major Motown figures like Smokey Robinson (Charl Brown) and Gaye (Bryan Terrell Clark) are reduced to making intermittent cameo appearances.

The dialogue is often vinyl-stiff, written in a shorthand meant to convey as much story as possible in as few words as possible. When Florence Ballard begins behaving erratically with the Supremes, Berry darkly intones: “The pressure of fame is vicious. Not everyone can go the distance.” Enter Flo’s replacement, Cindy Birdsong, seconds later. Rather more tastelessly, Gaye makes a brief allusion to his father, at whose hands he would later die (but not in this upbeat musical, of course).

The telegraphic nature of the book derives partly from the impossibility of telling the stories of all the major Motown artists in a single musical. (The Supremes alone inspired their own musical, “Dreamgirls.”) For a full and coherent history of Mr. Gordy’s game-changing music factory, you’d need to check out Gerald Posner’s engrossing book “Motown: Music, Money, Sex and Power.”

But audiences don’t go to Broadway musicals to see audiobooks performed live, and few are likely to complain that “Motown” skimps on what they have come to hear: the sweet stream of music that fused the soul of rhythm and blues with the ear worm hooks of pop to create a genre that played a role in America’s changing attitudes toward race in the 1960s. (Mr. Gordy’s general lack of involvement in politics and his lifelong focus on business become a little bit blurred here; he comes across as far more socially engaged than in Mr. Posner’s book.)

The performers put their songs across with verve and an admirable lack of self-consciousness, given that the audience is likely to be intimately familiar with every nuance of phrasing from the original recordings. Ms. LeKae’s cotton-candy voice matches up nicely with Ms. Ross’s, and she twitches her twiggy frame capably as Diana moves from awkward teenager to glamorous diva, even if the real Ms. Ross’s metallic edges — or should I say, as I’m sure she would prefer, the real Miss Ross’s metallic edges? — have been softened into mohair. As Gaye, Mr. Clarke exudes sexual magnetism during his brief appearances. Mr. Brown’s honeyed croon replicates Mr. Robinson’s convincingly, and in the central role of Berry — I’m tempted to say the only role — Mr. Dixon sings with passionate fervor, although in the dialogue scenes he’s only as good as his often flat-footed material.

But while the audience lapped up virtually all of the musical numbers — even Rick James and Teena Marie drop into the party, briefly and probably unnecessarily — the wildest applause erupted when Raymond Luke Jr., one of two performers who portray the boyish Jackson (along with the young Berry and the young Stevie Wonder), came bounding onstage, exuding the self-confidence and charm of the preternaturally seasoned performer he’s playing.

For all the richness of its gold-and-platinum-plated soundtrack, “Motown” would be a much more satisfying nostalgia trip if Mr. Gordy and his collaborators were more effective curators of both story and song, rather than trying to encompass the whole of the label’s fabled history in two and a half hours. Irresistible as much of the music is, I often had the frustrating impression that I was being forced to listen to an LP being played at the dizzying, distorting speed of a 45.

Awards - Tonys 2013 - Musicals - Sacndalous

SCANDALOUS

From the New York Times

The story is as familiar as anything in the Gospels. Little girl from Nowheresville dreams of fame on the world stage. Rebelling against a stern upbringing, she lights out for the big time, picking up and losing a husband or two before amassing an adoring audience. Then come the dark days, as her morals begin to melt in the hot Hollywood spotlight: the pill popping, the bad romances and legal squabbles, the flight from the scavenging reporters. Salvation arrives on cue, just in time for the finale.

“Scandalous,” a new Broadway musical about Aimee Semple McPherson, deviates from the boilerplate only in the distinctive passions of its heroine, whose fame derived not from stage or screen but from the pulpit. While collecting a fan base that would be the envy of any of her movie star contemporaries in the 1920s and ’30s, McPherson was also converting thousands to Christianity, healing the sick through the laying on of hands, and establishing the foundations on which the modern evangelical movement would be built.

“The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson,” as the show is subtitled, are actually much more fascinating than you would gather from this formulaic Broadway musical. With book and lyrics by Kathie Lee Gifford and music by David Pomeranz and David Friedman, “Scandalous,” which opened on Thursday night at the Neil Simon Theater, condenses and rearranges McPherson’s story to fit smoothly into the familiar grooves of celebrity biography. In the process the show reduces McPherson’s remarkable life to a cliché-bestrewn fable about the wages of fame.

Ms. Gifford herself is something of an expert on that subject: she’s known primarily as a perky television morning show host with a bit of the mean girl lurking behind the blinding smile. Recently she’s begun moonlighting: “Under the Bridge,” a cutesy children’s musical with book and lyrics by Ms. Gifford, was produced Off Broadway in 2005. Broadway jackals suspicious of Ms. Gifford’s bona fides were surely hoping for an epoch-making turkey in time for Thanksgiving. Sorry, guys. “Scandalous” isn’t so much scandalously bad as it is generic and dull.

True, collectors of camp might find some minor pleasures in the splashy biblical pageants of the second act, when McPherson, portrayed with hearty gumption by Carolee Carmello, looks on with a twinkly eye as Adam and Eve chomp from a sequined apple, or vamps as an alluring Delilah as Samson groans in beefcake bondage.

But these self-consciously silly sequences are actually reasonable representations of theillustrated sermons McPherson regularly delivered as the Sunday night special at her spectacular Los Angeles church, the Angelus Temple. As Daniel Mark Epstein notes in his engrossing biography, she used “the American revival meeting’s dramatic structure to create a fluid form of religious theater that resembled, in all but content, a musical comedy.”

Broadway has specialized in its own lavish brand of religious theater lately: last season we were treated to another unheavenly hootenanny about an evangelical preacher, “Leap of Faith,” along with revivals of “Godspell” and “Jesus Christ Superstar.” And of course that merry sendup of the oddities of Mormonism remains the hottest ticket in town. But God and the good works (and mostly bad musicals) he inspires are almost reduced to a walk-on in “Scandalous,” which plays down McPherson’s extraordinary ministry and spends most of its time dramatizing the punishing peaks and valleys of her personal life.

On a glittery white set by Walt Spangler designed to evoke a grandiose pulpit, the show opens with McPherson facing the toughest of her literal trials. In 1926 she and her mother were charged with obstruction of justice in relation to McPherson’s mysterious disappearance from a Santa Monica, Calif., beach. McPherson said she was kidnapped, and after a month of being held prisoner escaped from her captors in Mexico. Rumormongers took a dim view of this strange story — and its admitted inconsistencies — and suggested she’d been holed up in a hotel with a lover.

As her fate hangs in the balance, McPherson steps forward to narrate (and narrate, and narrate) the story of her life, from her beginnings in rural Canada to the pinnacle of her achievement. Highlights and low points include her rapturous love for her first husband, the Irish-born preacher Robert Semple (Edward Watts, of handsome face and voice), who died shortly after their marriage while they were on a mission in China; the tangled relationship with her domineering mother, Minnie (a stolid Candy Buckley), who largely handles the management of McPherson’s booming career; the intimations of sexual scandal hovering around her cozy relationship with a radio technician (Andrew Samonsky); and her unhappy third marriage to a singer in the church, David Hutton, who’s been given a major aesthetic upgrade: unprepossessing in actuality, he’s portrayed by the gleamingly buffed Mr. Watts, now in a blond wig.

Ms. Carmello, a gloriously gifted singing actress, has never managed to snag a star-making breakout role on Broadway — not all that surprising in these difficult days for musical theater. Sister Aimee certainly provides plenty of opportunities for Ms. Carmello to thrill us with the purity and power of her voice. She leads a few rousing come-to-Jesus gospel-tinged numbers with bright-beaming intensity. She delivers the climactic soul-baring ballad with plenty of emotional heat. What she cannot do — no singer without the power of miracle could — is bring distinction to songs that never rise above the serviceable.

And while Ms. Carmello persuasively charts McPherson’s journey from innocent from the sticks to impassioned healer to disillusioned celebrity, Ms. Gifford’s book never really makes us see why McPherson had such mesmeric power over her followers, and only sketches in the details of her tremendous hold on the popular imagination in the years of her fame.

The mystery of faith healing is, of course, not an easy thing to dramatize. It may be just as well that “Scandalous” does not include a chorus line of sinners tossing their crutches into the wings and making like the Rockettes after Sister Aimee has laid a hand on their crippled limbs. But it might be a lot more fun — and certainly more memorable — if it did.

Awards - Tonys 2013 - Musicals - Chaplin

CHAPLIN

From IBDb

The new musical “Chaplin” opens with the sight of the Little Tramp balanced on a tightrope high above the stage. It’s a fitting metaphor for the show itself — a wobbly, high stakes attempt to avoid gravity. Guess what happens? Gravity wins.

What opened Monday at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre tries hard to be something to everyone and in the process becomes less than anything. The great Charlie Chaplin deserves better.

It’s technically a musical, but one without a single memorable song. It’s also a play that veers into the psychological — apparently Chaplin had more mommy issues than Oedipus — but the drama is interrupted by silly dance breaks. It’s another hammy attempt on a Broadway stage to describe a famous life through the lens of a camera, a device that even its creators seem half-hearted about.

Rob McClure in the title role certainly deserves more than this to work with. He has clearly put his heart and soul into playing Chaplin — he not only sings and acts with feeling, he also tightropes, roller-skates blindfolded, does a backflip without spilling any of his drink, and waddles with a cane like a man who has studied hours of flickering footage.

But save for one sublime scene in which the various inspirations behind Chaplin’s decision to embody the Little Tramp is revealed, the show McClure leads is equal parts flat, overwrought and tiresome.

The story by Thomas Meehan and Christopher Curtis is a linear, two-hour biography that takes us from Chaplin’s poor childhood in London to his staggering stardom and then self-imposed exile thanks to accusations of un-American activities. Spinning newspaper headlines projected on the back wall baby feed you the plot in case you doze off.

Professionally, Chaplin confronts the challenge of talkies and then color. Personally, he confronts his own reckless fondness for young women and inability to get past being abandoned by his parents.

It touches on his relationship with his brother (Wayne Alan Wilcox) several lovers (including a sweet Erin Mackey as his third wife, Oona O’Neill) and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Jenn Colella, another bright spot), who destroys Chaplin by painting him a Commie.

 “I’m gonna wipe the smile/From the famous little clown,” she sings. If she had a mustache, she’d twirl it.

All the while, there are excruciating flashbacks of a young Chaplin begging for his mother’s love from a valiant Christiane Noll. But then, suddenly, a bunch of Chaplins in little mustaches will hit the stage to dance furiously while balancing bowler hats on canes. All night, the show zooms incoherently from anguish to zany. The nadir has to be a mock boxing match between Chaplin and his ex-wives. Nothing funnier than domestic violence, huh?

The musical ends with Chaplin getting a standing-ovation at the 1972 Academy Awards. “I’ve come to realize that life is not a movie,” he concludes in words he never actually said during the real show. “You can’t go back and edit it.” Such arrogance to reality is unforgivable. It’s also pretty trite. Someone needs to go back and edit this.

So ponderous is the staging — the director and choreographer is Warren Carlyle — that it took a full 30 minutes for the first real cheer to emerge from the audience. For a story about a man who delighted millions without having the benefit of sound? Unacceptable.

Add to this unhappy story the fact that Curtis, who also wrote the music and lyrics, has been unable to create anything approximating an original, hummable tune.

In the last, predictable scene, a child playing Chaplin meets the adult Chaplin and gives him a rose. The circle is complete. All is good in the world. “The world’s bound to love him/When they see the Little Tramp,” the cast sings. Not if the world see this.