February 2011
11 posts
"What Is That?" "It's What I Have To Work With."
Last update - for reasons I cannot adequately explain, I also went to see “La Cage Aux Folles” a couple of weeks ago. I couldn’t explain why I was going before, and I can’t explain why I went now. I have rarely been so bored by such aggressive attempts to entertain me.
Four problems with this show.
First, the source material. The original movie was pretty hilarious when...
Oh, Earnestly . . .
The other must-see show that I have neglected to review for more than two weeks is the production of “The Importance of Being Earnest” now playing at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre.
This makes, I think, the fourth “Earnest” I’ve seen, and all around the strongest. When I say this was the strongest “Earnest” I’ve seen, I’m...
The King's Speech
I’m very remiss in not having yet reviewed Neil Armfield, Geoffrey Rush and David Holman’s exciting stage adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s “Diary of a Madman” now onstage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which I saw at opening. But, better late than never - and at least you can still see it.
Gogol’s short story takes, as you would expect, the form of a diary: a...
First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All The Lawyers
I’m sorry but are these guys serious?
Shakespeare was only possible because there were “paywalls” around the theatres, and therefore we must defend our absurdly lopsided intellectual property regime?
Are Turow et al unaware that Shakespeare never published any of his work in his lifetime? That, in fact, there is no definitive text of some of Shakespeare’s greatest works -...
Burn, Baby, Burn
God bless Jesse Berger. The founder and Artistic Director of Red Bull Theatre (named for a Jacobean-era London theatre venue, no relation to the energy drink), Berger has, in my own humble view, done more than any other individual I can name to change the fate of classic theatre in New York. I used to think of my hometown as the place where the classics, particularly Shakespeare and his...
Am I Blue?
Over at the other blog I contribute to, “The American Scene,” I’ve got a post about my favorite movie of 2010, “Blue Valentine.” Check it out.
See The Table?
Now that Classic Stage’s production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters has opened, I feel free to review the preview performance that I saw last week. There’s a risk, of course, in doing so, as the director, Austin Pendleton, can change things - even substantial things - about a production right up to opening night. So it’s possible I’m reviewing a show you can’t...
Possibility Over Prose
How do you successfully depict the idea of love at first sight?
Well, what does “love at first sight” mean?
I have had an experience that is somewhat analogous - both with my beloved and, in other contexts, with other people - and that is: the experience of two minds spontaneously interpenetrating, two people understanding each other without needing to fully verbalize their thoughts....
Shakespeare on Film: A Bleg
Always a good way to find out if you have any readers: ask them a question.
Interested in seeing a bunch of Shakespeare on film, pursuant to possibly writing a screen adaptation of one of his lesser-known plays. (Something I always wanted to direct for the stage, but now I’m wondering whether it mightn’t profit me to go another route.)
I have already seen:
- Olivier’s...
A Good Name For a '70s Prog Rock Band
That was what I thought when I saw that the Brooklyn Academy of Music was bringing John Gabriel Borkman from Dublin to be staged at the Harvey Theatre. I’d never heard of the play before, and to be honest, I’m not much of an Ibsen fan. I went to see it substantially because of the cast - Alan Rickman as Borkman, Fiona Shaw as his wife, Gunhild, and Lindsay Duncan as her sister, Ella,...
I Was Scared Then; I'm Not Scared Now. How Long Do...
The other show we saw in Chicago earlier this month was the Steppenwolf Theatre’s production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I run hot and cold on Albee, but not on this early masterpiece. I remember being floored by it the first time I saw it on stage (at Stratford a decade ago), and the play has only deepened on reflection.
But there is a widespread feeling that the play has...
