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Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)

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Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)

ethocmub
#1Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/17/19 at 5:19pm

Hi Everyone, 

I'm writing a thesis on "Oklahoma!" for graduate school and in the midst of my research I came across a quote from late-career Hammerstein (or Rodgers) essentially setting forth their policy on revivals of their works. The gist of the quote was announcing skepticism toward directors re-interpreting the works, moving them gradually further and further from the point of the original script. This may have been in Todd Purdham's book or somewhere else...

Does anybody have any idea of what I'm talking about - their thoughts on re-stagings of their productions? 

 

Thanks, 

ET

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joevitus
#2Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/17/19 at 6:01pm

No idea ,but it's an absolutely fascinating comment to have encountered. I'm guessing it was Rodgers, as Hammerstein died shortly after their final show (The Sound of Music, of course) opened. I'm sure that people would argue even the opinion of Richard Rodgers isn't relevant to any revival of a Rodgers work, so far from the time in which the shows were created. This is a valid point, but I think the idea that Rodgers clearly saw the shows a product of a time and place and conception, and that to take the shows out of the consciousness of the moment that produced them, shows an interesting take on an artist's point for how he perceived his work. It's particulalry intersting as he didn't seem to hold the same opinion of either his or Hammerstein's shows prior to their collaboration. It's as if he saw these particular works too inextricably wedded to their original productions (because they were better, more complete works of art?) apart from his opinion of revivals in general. So much room for thought here. Hope you find the exact quote, or someone directs you to it. Very much worth a grad thesis. Would love to read it when it's published.

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HogansHero
#3Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/17/19 at 8:03pm

There was a great deal written on this subject on the other board, with particular reference to the comments that have been made by OHIII aka Andy Hammerstein. You'll find considerable scholarship over there, which you are of course free to take with a grain of salt, as I do. Things over there do no stayed archived for that long but if you go now you will find at least some of it.

I assume (or at least hope) that your thesis is about a broader subject than what the creators think should happen a long time after they are dead and gone. Regardless of what we may think in general about original intent and the like, I don't think anyone can project what OHII would think a lifetime later. (Rodgers is a different matter but not especially interesting.)

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GavestonPS
#4Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/17/19 at 9:14pm

I agree with Hogan and add that playwrights are often not the best authorities on their own work. My entire graduate class (MFA in Playwriting), except for me, thought they should direct their own plays. Fortunately for them, they were not allowed to do so. (I was the lone dissenter because I had worked as a director and understood that it is a very different job.)

Speaking of graduate school, there's a very good dissertation in the UCLA library on the evolution of OHII's thinking and writing and how his previous work led him to OK! I don't recall the author or the title, but with computers these days, you should be able to find it and borrow it through interlibrary loan.

ethocmub
#5Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/17/19 at 11:48pm

I appreciate the plug for the UCLA thesis. Depending on what it is, I've definitely JSTOR'd a few UCLA articles for this, namely one arguing for a read of Ali as a Jewish conduit for Hammerstein himself - the Persian-ness, simply a lark. 

The original musical is about assimilation, community, collectivity, but the restaging is "about" the unintended consequences of this politic. The thesis more or less explores the potentials for theater to resonate within contemporary political climes, (WW2 for the original, some kind of nebulous culture war presently).

This is just in case you're wondering. 

Since this is all quite new to me - coming at this as a visual art, not theater student - curious: What is this other board?? 

 

e

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joevitus
#6Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/18/19 at 1:45am

GavestonPS said: "I agree with Hogan and add that playwrights are often not the best authorities on their own work. My entire graduate class (MFA in Playwriting), except for me, thought they should direct their own plays. Fortunately for them, they were not allowed to do so. (I was the lone dissenter because I had worked as a director and understood that it is a very different job.)

Speaking of graduate school, there's a very good dissertation in the UCLA library on the evolution of OHII's thinking and writing and how his previous work led him to OK! I don't recall the author or the title, but with computers these days, you should be able to find it and borrow it through interlibrary loan.
"

I agree with both of you. I find the topic interesting simply in terms of the insight it gives us into Rodgers' mindset, especially as he seems to have held this opinion only in reference to his work in collaboration with Hammerstein, not his previous work with Hart nor Hammerstein's previous work with a variety of others.

Curiously, when Rodgers wrote "Something Good" for the film version of The Sound of Music, he insisted that the song replace "An Ordinary Couple" in future stage versions (he only sometimes got his way). Thus even Rodgers, to some extent, felt that changes could be made to improve a work--that not everything was set in stone as of the original opening night.

Also interesting: Hammerstein kept changing aspects of the book and I believe even added lyrics to South Pacific throughout its run, not to mention "Dites Moi" going from a solo to a duet in the process. But I don't think these changes were incorporated into future scripts in later runs. Getting the info on SP from the book South Pacific: Paradise Rewritten, on SoM from the reminiscences of Wakefield Poole directing a production in the mid-sixties staring Dorothy Collins.

Updated On: 8/18/19 at 01:45 AM

A Director
#7Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/18/19 at 3:29am

ethocmub said: "I appreciate the plug for the UCLA thesis. Depending on what it is, I've definitely JSTOR'd a few UCLA articles for this, namely one arguing for a read of Ali as a Jewish conduit for Hammerstein himself - the Persian-ness, simply a lark.

Did the author of the article read  CREEN GROW THE LILACS by Lynn Riggs?  In it, the character has no name. In the character list, he is called A Peddler. Riggs writes, "He is a little wiry, swarthy Syrian..."  In the original production, the role was played by Lee Strasberg.  In OKLAHOMA!, Ali Hakim was played by another Jewish actor, Joseph Buloff.

In last year's Oregon Shakespeare  Festival production of the musical, Ali Hakim was played by actor whose family is from Iran.  He was wonderful in the role.

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GavestonPS
#8Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/18/19 at 3:54am

Just to be clear, I was talking about a doctoral dissertation. It isn't an "article", it's a "book".

It's also pretty straight-forward, not some post-modern, "Lit Crit" intellectual excursion. But it does discuss with specificity OHII's politics in the 1940s and how they are reflected in the musical play. Nothing about how the Persian is a stand-in for a Jew, which, frankly, doesn't make much sense given that both Rodgers and Hammerstein were highly assimilated.

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OlBlueEyes
#9Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/18/19 at 1:24pm

I have no degree in theater; I will just make one observation and apply it only to myself.

The 2018 revival of Carousel, which ran for 180 performances and 40 previews, cast a black man in the role of Billy. Had I seen this production with no advance knowledge of Carousel, and noted the evident direct comparison between Billy and Mr. Snow, I would have taken it that the book author was, at least in part, telling us that black men in comparison to white were more shiftless, lazy, prone to wife abuse and crime, including murder. I think that I would have been justified in drawing these conclusions and that Oscar would have been appalled that Carousel was being used to promote such conclusions.

R&H would have been correct in not allowing this production so cast, but I doubt that they had any control over casting and race.

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GavestonPS
#10Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/18/19 at 1:51pm

OlBlueEyes, I trust none of us--let alone I--have made you feel that your posts are less valid because you don't have a degree in theater. I promise you I am not a snob in that regard.

Oskar Eustis, now artistic director of The Public Theatre, only has a high school diploma and a few credits of college work. Nonetheless, he is not just one of the smartest, but one of the best professors I ever had. He literally changed me by altering the way I think about theater.

As you may have noticed, I regularly read and respond to your posts. Not once have I found your opinions lacking in erudition, even when we disagree.

***

I agree wholeheartedly about the casting of a black man as Billy Bigelow, however well he sounds on the album. I think it radically changes the subtext of the entire piece.

If you are committed to your AA Billy Bigelow--and I have no problem with that per se--then I think you need to cast as many African Americans as possible (or go all out and do a black cast) to ensure that Billy's skin color doesn't become the primary theme of the show. JMHO and I must confess I didn't see the production.

Updated On: 8/22/19 at 01:51 PM

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GavestonPS
#11Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/18/19 at 2:12pm

ethocmub said: "...The original musical is about assimilation, community, collectivity, but the restaging is "about" the unintended consequences of this politic...."

Don't buy into all the hype over the current revival. I don't mean the hype that says it is good; I haven't seen it but love the recording. I mean the hype that this production has found something that wasn't in the original.

OHII was fully aware that some are sacrificed in the forging of a community, whether on the local or national levels. His shows evidence particular disdain for those who "can't follow the rules" that bind the community.

Look at the sacrificial lambs in his shows:

SHOW BOAT -- Julie: not dead but disappeared
OKLAHOMA! -- Jud
ALLEGRO -- The first wife: also not dead but exiled from the "community"
SOUTH PACIFIC -- Lt. Cable
THE KING AND I -- The King himself
 
Just because OKLAHOMA! has been presented too often as some sort of cotton-candy musical comedy doesn't mean that's what OHII wrote.

Updated On: 8/18/19 at 02:12 PM

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joevitus
#12Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/18/19 at 2:19pm

Wait a minute--a black Billy suggests a condemnation of an entire race when a white Billy doesn't? Did Audra MacDonald's Carrie imply some statement about black women? 

I didn't see the Carousel revival, so I can't say how the approach in this particular production read, but the idea that a black actor can't play a troubled character (and Billy, deeply flawed as he is, is clearly meant to be a sympathetic hero we care for deeply, and who's journey from thug to salvation brings us joy) without it being a comment on his race sounds, to me, really troubling. What are black actors to do if they can't play flawed, complex characters? 

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HogansHero
#13Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/18/19 at 3:13pm

I am not especially interested in wading back into the substantive discussion, which has been rehearsed as to both shows in at least one thread each. 

So I will just make a couple of passing comments:

1. To correct a misimpression, R&H had COMPLETE "control over casting and race."

2. Although I admit press releases tend to overstate these things, I think EVERY production (unless it's bad) reveals "something that wasn't in the original." 

3. A production is entitled to seek whatever audience it wants, and has no obligation to be universal. 

4. In addressing race in casting, I think we (a) can choose to cast color-blind, or not, and (2) no matter how hard we try to be color blind, we need to be mindful that in the US (and unfortunately this is a cancer that's spreading elsewhere) our brains are hard-wired to notice race (in a way that we do not apply to, say, hair color) and this affects any discussion on this subject. (And regrettably this is an even more heightened issue when we are talking about males. [Don't believe me? Do a search on the recent Frankie and Johnny.]

 

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OlBlueEyes
#14Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/19/19 at 1:34am

OlBlueEyes, I trust none of us--let alone I--have made you feel that your posts are less valid because you don't have a degree in theater. I promise you I am not a snob in that regard.

Gaveston, you are so solicitous of my feelings that you only increase my admiration of you. I do have three degrees in other areas and at this point of my life would not boast of any of them. But I do believe that my opinion on a matter, after five or ten minutes of reflection, will not in many cases be of the same value as that of someone who has spent a lifetime in the theater and has considered the same question at great length. I would be loathe to appear to be informing people that they should share my opinion.

Hogan through his experience informs me that the R&H Organization could impose limits on its licensees as to what races could be cast in what roles. I thought that this was too sensitive an issue to broach.

Perhaps I am alone in this, but as I progressed through the business world into meetings I found that blacks addressed in business attire with command of the language and command of the subject matter of the meetings ceased to be noticed by me as to their race. They were my equal. The black middle class is a success....at least mostly.

The problem here is that African American boys graduating from high school have been by percentage enrolling less and less in four year colleges after graduation. Ten to eleven percent less than the girls. (The same pattern exists for white male high school graduates. Ten to eleven percent less boys than girls enrolling in college each year.) A large number of uneducated, unemployed or underemployed young men are a very bad demographic for a democracy to possess. Relatively more attention is spent on relatively less important women's educational issues because the lobbyists and their money are already in place. Male high school attendees have no constituencies. 

But I digress. Wait a minute--a black Billy suggests a condemnation of an entire race when a white Billy doesn't? 

Well, yes. Because the white is the privileged majority and the other is the oppressed minority. Because the minority is subject to stereotype while the majority is not, because it is the majority. You cannot tell me that over the years blacks have not howled over members of their race being cast according to stereotype. If I still had a functioning memory I would name some. To make it easier on myself, consider the outcry if a Jew is cast as a greedy, swindling banker. You don't get the same reaction if a white is cast in that role because there are so many of us that we know that some but not all are capable of that role.

What are black actors to do if they can't play flawed, complex characters? 

There are many ways for black actors to play flawed, complex characters without reinforcing stereotypes about lazy, shiftless and abusive. For example a black actor can play Othello or OJ Simpson, a man whose fierce jealousy drives him to murder. Whites and blacks share the emotion of intense jealousy that can fuel rage. 

Have their been any postmortems on that calamitous production of Carousel?

A Director
#15Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/19/19 at 2:23am

HogansHero said: 
4. In addressing race in casting, I think we (a) can choose to cast color-blind, or not, and (2) no matter how hard we try to be color blind, we need to be mindful that in the US (and unfortunately this is a cancer that's spreading elsewhere) our brains are hard-wired to notice race (in a way that we do not apply to, say, hair color) and this affects any discussion on this subject. (And regrettably this is an even more heightened issue when we are talking about males.[Don't believe me? Do a search on the recent Frankie and Johnny.]

Oh dear!  The phrase "color-blind" is so last century.  Today, the preferred phrase in  non-traditional casting.  Color-blind casting implies you don't see the person as a person.



 

 

A Director
#16Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/19/19 at 2:27am

GavestonPS said: 
I agree wholeheartedly about the casting of a black man as Billy Bigelow, however well he sounds on the album. I think it radically changes the subtext of the entire piece.

If you are committed to your AA Billy Bigelow--and I have no problem with that per se--then I think you need to cast as many African Americans as possible (or go all out and do a black cast) to ensure that Billy's skin color doesn't become the primary theme of the show. JMHO and I must confess I didn't see the production.
"

Pray tell, how did you feel about Audra playing Carrie in the previous revival of the show?

 

A Director
#17Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/19/19 at 2:31am

GavestonPS said: 
Look at the sacrificial lambs in his shows:

SHOW BOAT -- Julie:not dead but disappeared


> This what happens in Edna Ferber's novel.  In the novel, Gaylord disappears.  In the novel Capin'  Andy falls off the Cotten Blossom during a storm.


OKLAHOMA! -- Jud

> Oscar is following Lynn Riggs.

 

A Director
#18Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/19/19 at 3:05am

OlBlueEyes said: "
 

>I should state up front, I have three degrees in theatre and I am 70.  I am troubled and confused by your comments.


Perhaps I am alone in this, but as I progressed through the business world into meetings I found that blacks addressed in business attire with command of the language and command of the subject matter of the meetings ceased to be noticed by me as to their race. They were my equal. The black middle class is a success....at least mostly.

> I think you mean dressed in business attire.  In command of what language?  What do you mean by command?  Do you mean you only respect blacks if they speak just like you?  

The problem here is that African American boys graduating from high school have been by percentage enrolling less and less in four year colleges after graduation. Ten to eleven percent less than the girls. (The same pattern exists for white male high school graduates. Ten to eleven percent less boys than girls enrolling in college each year.) A large number of uneducated, unemployed or underemployed young men are a very bad demographic for a democracy to possess. Relatively more attention is spent on relatively less important women's educational issues because the lobbyists and their money are already in place. Male high school attendees have noconstituencies.

> What is the source of your statistics?  As for your comment, "less important women's educational issues," how very sexist of you! Do you believe women should just home and tend to their children.?

But I digress.Wait a minute--a black Billy suggests a condemnation of an entire race when a white Billy doesn't?

Well, yes. Because the white is the privileged majority and the other is the oppressed minority. Because the minority is subject to stereotype while the majority is not, because it is the majority. You cannot tell me that over the years blacks have not howled over members of their race being cast according to stereotype. If I still had a functioning memory I would name some. To make it easier on myself, consider the outcry if a Jew is cast as a greedy, swindling banker. You don't get the same reaction if a white is cast in that role because there are so many of us that we know that some but not all are capable of that role.

> To use a contemporary phrase, YOU"VE JUMPED THE SHARK! Yes, blacks, Asian-Americans, Latinx, and Native Americans, Muslim-Americans have rightly complained about being cast in stereo-type roles. Your comment about Jews and whites is confusing.  I'm Jewish and white!  Are you one of those white folk who don't believe Jews are white?

What are black actors to do if they can't play flawed, complex characters?

In my years of theatre-going, I have seen many black actors who play flawed, complex characters. What your problem?

There are many ways for black actors to play flawed, complex characters without reinforcing stereotypes about lazy, shiftless and abusive. For example a black actor can play Othello or OJ Simpson, a man whose fierce jealousy drives him to murder. Whites and blacks share the emotion of intense jealousy that can fuel rage.

>  You don't get out much do you?  For years, black actors have played flawed, complex characters written by August Wilson and Lynn Nottage.  There are many African-American playwrights who hav also created complex characters flawed or not.  There are many POC playwrights who have done and do the same.

 

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Someone in a Tree2
#19Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/19/19 at 6:38am

The above comment just reinforces Ol Blue Eyes’ thesis: most of those playwright’s works feature casts where African Americans are in the majority. Had they cast CAROUSEL with a chiefly African American cast, Billy Bigelow’s color would have ceased to be an issue, and the depiction of that character with all his flaws would have had nothing to do with race.

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OlBlueEyes
#20Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/19/19 at 8:29am

As for your comment, "less important women's educational issues," how very sexist of you! Do you believe women should just home and tend to their children.?

Congratulations for being the first to inject name-calling into this discussion, as would a proper 12 year old.

Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little,
Cheep cheep cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more

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HogansHero
#21Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/19/19 at 8:49am

A Director said: "Oh dear! The phrase "color-blind" is so last century. Today, the preferred phrase in non-traditionalcasting. Color-blind casting implies you don't see the person as a person."

You are confounding two separate things, and "color blind" is neither dated nor disrespectful. (In fact, I would suggest it elevates the person qua person, rather than defining them in terms of their race, which is, sadly, the first thing we are conditioned as Americans to notice.) "Non-traditional" refers to an intention to cast an actor with different attributes than the scripted (or historical, if applicable) ones; "color-blind" refers to casting without any attributional intention at all. 

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OlBlueEyes
#22Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/19/19 at 6:42pm

Since I do feel that the downward trend in boys of black and white races to attend college is an important issue getting little publicity, I will put up some documentation. 

 

The gender education gap, Atlantic, 11/17

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/11/gender-education-gap/546677/

Why men are the new college minority, Atlantic, 8/17

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/why-men-are-the-new-college-minority/536103/

Overall, women in the Class of 2018 will earn 141 college degrees at all levels for every 100 men and there will be a 663,000 college degree gap (up from 659,000 last year) in favor of women for this year's college graduates (1.62 million total degrees for men vs. 2.28 million total degrees for women).

http://www.aei.org/publication/prediction-no-graduation-speaker-will-mention-the-29-gender-college-degree-gap-for-the-class-of-2018/

And here is an article from Bloomberg that you probably can't read unless you subscribe.

U.S. Women Outpacing Men in Higher Education: Demographic Trends, Bloomberg, 8/18

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-06/u-s-women-outpacing-men-in-higher-education-demographic-trends

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ChairinMain
#23Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/20/19 at 2:28am

"Non-traditional" refers to an intention to cast an actor with different attributes than the scripted (or historical, if applicable) ones; "color-blind" refers to casting without any attributionalintention at all."

It should be noted that in my recent experience, color blind casting has, in fact, been challenged as dated - a recent production at a high level regional theater, for example, was criticized for casting actors of color only as the show's villains; that sort of thing. The stated goal of many companies performing standard work is now "color- conscious" casting along with color-blind or non-traditional. "color-conscious" being a case where an actor's race is taken into account in order to avoid roles becoming tinged with stereotype or to provide a nontraditional point of view. 

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HogansHero
#24Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/20/19 at 10:25am

ChairinMain said: "It should be noted that in my recent experience, color blind casting has, in fact, been challenged as dated - a recent production at a high level regional theater, for example, was criticized for casting actors of color only as the show's villains; that sort of thing.The stated goal of many companies performing standard work is now "color- conscious" casting along with color-blind or non-traditional. "color-conscious" being a casewhere an actor's race is taken into account in order to avoid roles becoming tinged with stereotype or to provide a nontraditional point of view."

I am confused by your example, because it seems to be what you are calling color-conscious casting. And I am not sure how color-blind casting is "dated" when we see it almost constantly.

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joevitus
#25Rodgers and Hammerstein on Revivals (Question)
Posted: 8/20/19 at 10:16pm

HogansHero said: "ChairinMain said: "It should be noted that in my recent experience, color blind casting has, in fact, been challenged as dated - a recent production at a high level regional theater, for example, was criticized for casting actors of color only as the show's villains; that sort of thing.The stated goal of many companies performing standard work is now "color- conscious" casting along with color-blind or non-traditional. "color-conscious" being a casewhere an actor's race is taken into account in order to avoid roles becoming tinged with stereotype or to provide a nontraditional point of view."

I am confused by your example, because it seems to be what you are calling color-conscious casting. And I am not sure how color-blind casting is "dated" when we see it almost constantly.
"

The meaning is that the term is dated and thus the mentality behind it. "Color-blind" suggests "I don't see color" and out of date platitude, whereas "color-consciousness" indicates being very aware of race and the differences of racial experience in American, which is a very contemporary and "in" notion. But all this was explained in the post itself.


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