Episodes

  • Uncle Baggya Previews the Live Draft

    Uncle Baggya Previews the Live Draft
    Sep 30 2024
    UMB Theater presents Dr. Dukesimov and his old friend Baggya, commiserating about dreary life, and looking forward to the Upper Middlebrow LIVE Draft. That's coming October 10th, at 5pm PDT, and there will be door prizes and a chance to vote on a new Upper Middlebrow series. Watch this space!
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    4 mins
  • Episode 63: “Cherries, Anyone?” or The National Theatre’s Production of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard

    Episode 63: “Cherries, Anyone?” or The National Theatre’s Production of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard
    Sep 23 2024
    The National Theatre production glimmers with an excellent cast, including Zoe Wanamaker and Conleth Hill. Dukes finds that the performances and the direction/translation choices help raise the stakes and steepen the conflict. He wonders if there’s a kind of “oral history” or collective theatrical knowledge of Chekhov that aids live productions, and Bagg suggests that Chekhov’s genius lies in creating a scaffold which great directors and actors flesh out (while acknowledging that having an oral history of prior productions helps A LOT).
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    1 hr and 18 mins
  • Episode 62: “To Sell or Not to Sell…Is That Really the Question?” or Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Part I

    Episode 62: “To Sell or Not to Sell…Is That Really the Question?” or Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Part I
    Sep 9 2024
    The UMBers sit down with a play that Bagg has read a million times and that Dukes is visiting for the first time. The lads discuss what this work is like for a first-timer and then put on their acting shoes to read some dialogue. Dukes wonders if this script is something that only works when the play is staged, and we get some help from a more contemporary pair of scriptwriters.
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    1 hr and 17 mins
  • Episode 61: “Mathematical” Courage or Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner Part II

    Episode 61: “Mathematical” Courage or Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner Part II
    Sep 2 2024
    After Dukes summarizes the plot of Beverly Hills Cop for Bagg, the UMBs get down to business. The second half of The Kite Runner fulfills its promises. Everything is excellent, but again, the lads feel that things are a bit too perfect, and still prefer the rare moments that upset the balance.
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    1 hr and 20 mins
  • Episode 60: “Zero Sum Narrative,” or Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.

    Episode 60: “Zero Sum Narrative,” or Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.
    Aug 19 2024
    Bagg and Dukes haven’t read this 2003 bestseller, and confess to a little snobbishness about a book that is ubiquitous at airport books stores. But…it's really good! Despite being impressed by the novel’s depiction of a childhood event that impacts our protagonist’s entire life, the UMBs wonder if the novel’s narrative physics are a bit TOO perfect.
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    1 hr and 12 mins
  • Episode 59: “The Bathetic Fallacy,” or Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

    Episode 59: “The Bathetic Fallacy,” or Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
    Aug 5 2024
    The UMBers tackle Ray Bradbury’s 1950s classic novella and are impressed by how much influence this book has had on other writers and the intellectual landscape. The lads rattle off at least five or six other works they’ve read that owe Fahrenheit an allusive debt. Both find the prose and dialogue somewhat clunky, but in a role-reversal it’s Dukes this time that thinks Bradbury may have intended the clunkiness for artistic effect, while Bagg is merely triggered by it. Regardless, both agree that this book (and its enduring popularity) are a product of its socio-political moment, when fears of fascism and censorship rippled through American society.
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • Episode 58: “The Deus is in the Details,” or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Part II

    Episode 58: “The Deus is in the Details,” or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Part II
    Jul 22 2024
    The lads marvel at Margaret Atwood’s delicate prose and “lighter than air” narrative, in which sparse poetic writing conveys an alternative future vividly. But is the ending a bit of a deus ex machina, and if so, is that a problem? Or does that serve to reinforce the ideas at the heart of the book? Dukes and Bagg have a spirited but generally glowing read of Atwood’s 1985 masterwork.
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    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Episode 57: “Highest Stakes Scrabble,” or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Part I

    Episode 57: “Highest Stakes Scrabble,” or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Part I
    Jul 11 2024
    The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a speculative near future that feels disturbingly familiar. The lads marvel at Atwood’s ability to vividly describe a speculative world without any obvious expository passages. Offred’s observations, musings, and memories effectively build the world, without ever taking the reader away from her point of view.
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    1 hr and 14 mins