(Charles Isherwood’s article appeared in The New York Times, 5/14.)
Oh, to be a young artist, brimming with confidence, passion and a desire to remake the world by making beautiful things.
Bang! Oh, dear. Ten years have passed. The breaks haven’t come, the world is the same as it ever was, and the gritty glamour of la vie bohème has subsided into the numbing drudgery of scraping by on no money while battling substance abuse.
Worse yet, that great friend and colleague, the one whose work you secretly dissed, has made it big. Really big. She’s moved to the land of palm trees, sells to all the big collectors and has even got a pool in the backyard of her lavish house.
(Read more)
(The clip below, not from 'pool (no water)', shows Ravenhill reciting his sonnet written for Shakespeare's 448th birthday and the opening of Britain's World Shakespeare Festival.)
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