We already know that the musical theatre form can be sublime even when it is dark, but Adding Machine is as grim an example as you will find. I found it exciting and recommend taking a shot at any tickets that might be left. You might even be able to get a $25 ticket through ticketmaster. The code is AM2525.
I saw the Wooster Group's Hamlet yesterday and haven't stopped thinking about it.
The production reminded me of one of those movies about an old haunted house and a team of paranormal investigators who set up camp for the night armed with special equipment, perhaps a psychic or two, and nerd-like ingenuity and zeal.
Hamlet was that haunted house, specifically a grainy film recording of a 1964 Broadway performance with Richard Burton in the title role.
For all of the liberties taken by the Wooster Group, by the end it seemed to me that the ensemble had been as much affected by Hamlet (both Burton's and Shakespeare's) as it had been transgressed by them. Far from simply an exercise in deconstruction, the performance arrived at a rousing and surprisingly heartfelt place. I am still trying to process how that happened.
If you could write like one fiction author, who would it be?
Submitted by Marilyn.
I feel temperamentally suited to hosting the spirit of Angela Carter, which seems as good a way as any to narrow down a difficult choice. Ms. Carter passed away on February 16, 1992, three months shy of her 52nd birthday.
There are few enough plays in this world so well written that they can be treated with such graceful understatement. It is understandable that young directors might bring their full array of tools to bear on a play every time out, because most of the time their ingenuity is needed. But not so much here, not for this great play.
What are five books that changed your life?
Inspired by Ms. Genevieve.
Not necessarily my favorite books, but they each mattered in their time ....
Look at America: The Country You Know and Don't Know, by the Editors of Look Magazine
--a photo collection, all b&w, that kept me fascinated for much of my childhood, its images lurking in me like recurring dreams even as my parents took my sister and me on a series of long distance automobile trips cross-country and throughout the west.
Mysterious Island, by Jules Verne
--my transition from pulp scifi and Classics Illustrated to full-blown literature, and the first instance in which I carried around a heavy, hardcover book as my constant companion.
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
--restless at 16 years of age.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
--the first tragedy that really meant anything to me personally.
Twelfth Night, or What You Will, by William Shakespeare
--the play that I come back to over and over again.
Though I have no time for time sinks. Ozona (a serial drama) simmers half-cooked. My episode, #1, still requires a final scene. Robin's episode #2 lives in a slightly different country than that of episode #1, while Robert's episode #3 belongs to another continent. We need to be better in sync, even as we await the added complication of Joy's episode #4. It's a difficult collaboration, this project, different from, say, a television series not only because it happens live on stage but because television writers heed the direction of whomever signs their paychecks. We have no such boss, we only have me, the head writer, and the good faith of all involved.
Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic will be staying in Philadelphia. More than 2,000 people have donated $25 million dollars, while the remaining $43 million will be paid by the Art Museum of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, who will share ownership. The current owner, Thomas Jefferson University had planned on selling the painting to a museum in Arkansas, raising an outcry.
The 1875 scene depicts a surgery being performed at Jefferson Medical College and was considered too important to the artistic heritage of the city to be allowed to leave.
Wilma Theatre, Philadelphia, December 20, 2006. An actor at the top of his game.
It is the look in Turman's eye that lingers: the flicker of inspiration long
on the brink of despair. A distillation of life under apartheid, though I shudder at knowing that I have seen that look elsewhere as well.
Recent Comments
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dextly said:
I would say that the company was most specifically interested in the performances in that 1964 production, especially Burton's, especially... read more
on ghost story -
Renee/ the p.r. said:
Your performance sounds similar (somehow) to one that I saw at Stratford of Midsummer--complete with cirque de soleil! By this... read more
on ghost story -
dextly said:
That's a tough question for me, Renee. For much of the performance the Hamlet figure came across to me as... read more
on ghost story -
Renee/ the p.r. said:
[this is good]Thank you for writing about this performance. I wonder if you could say a little more about it. I'm particularly... read more
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