Near the beginning of every summer, I engage in a viewing ritual: Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City.It’s doubtful that it would strike everyone as summertime fare, but my original viewing of it was in the sweltering South Texas heat some twelve years ago, and the memories of that time stuck. So around June…ah start itchin’ fer mah Tales.
Based on Maupin’s book of the same name, Tales was originally a daily serial presented over a period of years in the San Francisco Chronicle. Eventually the columns were collected into a series of five books, which Maupin followed with a final novel, bringing the total to six and the saga to an end.
But back to the tale that started it all…set in San Francisco of 1976, it begins as the story of Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney), a young, naïve girl from Cleveland who visits San Fran one summer. After spending about a week there, she decides she doesn’t want to return to Ohio. And I mean really, can you blame her?
Soon enough Mary Ann finds a cozy little apartment on Russian Hill at the fictitious 28 Barbary Lane, which is run by cool spinster Mrs. Anna Madrigal (Olympia Dukakis). Anna enjoys growing marijuana in her garden, and she’s more than happy to share with her tenants – or her “children”, as she refers to them. When Mary Ann asks Mrs. M if she has any objection to pets, she replies, “My dear, I have no objection to anything.”
Also living at #28 are: Mona Ramsey (Chloe Webb), a hippiechick free spirit who works in advertising; Brian Hawkins (Paul Gross), the local lothario with an unapparent heart of gold; Michael “Mouse” Tolliver (Marcus D’Amico), Mona’s gay roommate, who’s based heavily on Maupin himself; and Norman Neal Williams (Stanley DeSantis)…but the less said about Norman the better - you need to discover his complexities on your own.
The denizens of 28 Barbary Lane are sort of the “have nots” – no money, uncertain futures, problematic relationships and the like. Across town live the “haves”, symbolized by the Halcyon family: patriarch Edgar (Donald Moffat), a wealthy businessman, his lush of a wife Frannie (Nina Foch), their society daughter DeDe (Barbara Garrick), and her lecherous husband Beauchamp Day (Thomas Gibson). While the Halcyons definitely have money, their futures are as uncertain and their relationships as problematic as the kids over on Russian Hill.
Also onboard in supporting roles are Bill Campbell, Michael Jeter, Paul Dooley, Ian McKellen, Paul Bartel, Parker Posey, Mary Kay Place, Country Joe McDonald, Rod Steiger, McLean Stevenson, and Karen Black as herself. Ahem, rewind...McLean Stevenson - woah! In his only scene he harrumphs, “Why is it always The Marriage of goddamn Figaro?” upon being forced to go to the opera. “South Pacific – now there was a musical!” According to IMDB, it was his final screen role.
Does it sound busy? The graceful tapestry weave of these people’s lives is only one remarkable aspect of the series. Nothing ever seems forced or shoehorned, only natural and right. The maze in which they all travel amongst one another is a seemingly effortless “six degrees” type of construction – a distinct hallmark of Maupin’s prose.
Maupin has often said his primary influence when writing is Hitchcock, and from the opening visual, Vertigo itself is a guest star – it even begins with the famous swirling musical cue from Bernard Herrmann’s score. Its structure appears deceptively soap operatic and big chunks of the story are wrapped up in mysteries and secrets – I’m certainly not going to blow any of its many surprises by talking about them here. Suffice it to say, few of the characters are who you think they are by series’ end.
Given the time period and locale, the story naturally features diverse assortments of drug use, sexuality and frank nudity. When it originally aired as part of American Playhouse on PBS (it was a co-production with Britain’s Channel 4), you can imagine the uproar from the conservative public. Protests, picketing and threats ensued – many PBS stations, bowing to pressure, refused to air it, while others played an edited version. (I’m unsure how many aired it uncut.) Despite the controversy -or perhaps because of - it achieved massive ratings and the plan was to follow with an adaptation of Maupin’s second book, which picks up about 6 weeks after the first tale ends. PBS caved and instead four years passed before Showtime stepped up to the plate and agreed to help finance More Tales of the City.
Given how much TV has changed since 1994, Tales seems positively mild by today’s standards, but shows like Queer as Folk and Weeds should always remember the ground that was broken by the series. Twin Peaks changed TV for the viewer; Tales of the City, one could argue, changed TV for the producer. One wonders if cablers like HBO and Showtime jumped into the TV game due in part to the troubles that befell Tales, and the recognition that there’s an audience for adult TV fare – stuff that shouldn’t be burdened by network strictures. In fact, Tales was the first major TV project for Alan Poul – you may recognize him as the executive producer of Six Feet Under.
Poul also spearheaded the follow-ups, More Tales (1998) and Further Tales of the City (2001). Both of those series are very good, but neither quite scales the magical heights of the original. There’s an attention paid to period detail (due in no small part to Alastair Reid's direction) in the first Tales which the sequels somewhat lack. It feels as if it were shot in 1976 – I’ve actually had to tell people that it wasn’t, despite the obviousness of stuff like Laura Linney being too young to have starred in something lensed in the ‘70s. The time gap between the first two series also led to numerous cast changes in the sequels – although Linney and Dukakis (and a handful of others) stuck with it over the years, and presumably would return for future installments. (At the time of writing, the latter three Tales books - all set in the '80s - remain unfilmed.)
Each intricate relationship in Tales portrays a very different slice of life, but my personal favorite is the clandestine affair that develops between Edgar Halcyon and Mrs. Madrigal. Rarely is such passion between “seasoned” actors/characters shown onscreen, and Moffat and Dukakis do not love one another in ways you might expect - there’s a great whimsy and simple kindness displayed by the meeting of these two lost souls. It’s likely some of the best acting both actors have done in their long careers.
One scene in particular that stands out is when free-spirited Anna takes stuffy Edgar to the beach and they spy a group of hippies flying a kite. Edgar remarks that it’s something he hasn’t done in years; Anna tells him to hang on. She sprints over to the kids and returns with the kite telling Edgar “We’ve only got ten minutes - let's make it count!” Edgar asks how she struck a deal with them. Cut to the hippies passing around one of Anna’s hand-rolleds. While it isn’t the most complex scene in the series, it may be one of the most real.
All three Tales of the City miniseries are available on DVD.
A film based on Armistead Maupin's most recent novel, The Night Listener, is currently scheduled for an August 2006 release, starring Robin Williams and Toni Collette.
