Category Archives: Commentary

HOW IRISH KINDNESS IN A WAR-RAVAGED FRENCH TOWN INSPIRED UNKNOWN WRITER SAMUEL BECKETT · Aug 21st

(Frank McNally’s article appeared in the Irish Times, 8/20/26; Samuel Beckett’s short poem, which appeared in The Irish Times 80 years ago, was inspired by his visits to Saint-Lô after the second World War.) 

Short poem in The Irish Times was too obscure for some, but Beckett’s time in Saint-Lô warranted a verse with deep meaning

Samuel Beckett’s short poem, which appeared in The Irish Times 80 years ago, was inspired by his visits to Saint-Lô after the second World War. 

Eighty years ago this summer, The Irish Times published a poem by a little-known writer named Samuel Beckett.

Fenced off in a box on page five, between An Irishman’s Diary and Letters to the Editor (which led with a row about the price of tomatoes), the single verse was entitled “Saint-Lô 1945“, and read as follows:  “Vire will wind in other shadows/unborn through the bright ways tremble/and the old mind/ghost-abandoned/sink into its havoc.”

The poem was too obscure for one reader, a “bewildered” resident of Sutton, who assumed “Vire” to be a common noun. The reader searched through dictionaries and found only the definitions “small ring” and “crossbow bolt”, neither of which helped.

Nor could they have, because the Vire is a small river in France, flowing through Saint-Lô on its way to the English Channel.

In fairness to the Sutton reader, it hadn’t been famous enough to make the cut for the celebrated rivers passage in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939), although that managed to namecheck 1,100 other waterways around the world.

Beckett’s poem was inspired by his visits to Saint-Lô after the second World War, by which time the town was in ruins, thanks its former status as German-army stronghold and a key target for Allied bombers clearing the way for the Normandy landings.

The “night of fire” that coincided with D-Day, on June 6th, 1944, reduced it to rubble. There were more bombs to come in July, this time from the retreating Germans, during the ensuing ground battle. On finally entering the town, one US soldier quipped: “We sure liberated the hell out of this place.”

So complete was Saint-Lô’s destruction that for a time afterwards, some people thought it should be left like that, as a museum of ruins.

But the surviving residents disagreed and went back to rebuild lives from the chaos. Among the international efforts to help was a project in which Beckett became centrally involved, and also wrote about – this time in prose – in June 1946.

Initially intended for broadcast on Radio Éireann (it’s unclear whether it aired), The Capital of the Ruins recorded the event in plain terms:  “On what a year ago was a grass slope, lying in the angle that the Vire and Bayern roads make as they unite at the entrance of the town .  . . a general hospital now stands. It is the Hospital of the Irish Red Cross in Saint-Lô, or, as the Laudiniens (residents of Saint-Lô) themselves say, the Irish Hospital.”

Beckett was back in Paris by the time it opened. In the script for broadcast, as elsewhere, he was typically modest about his role as the project’s store manager. But one of the doctors who witnessed it found him “terribly conscientious” in his work.

The many shortages he had faced included rat poison, then much in demand. After consulting experts at the Institut Curie, he improvised his own concoction.

His time in Saint-Lô has lighter moments too. One of the town’s few surviving houses – although shells had passed through the walls – was home to a miraculously intact piano. On visits there, Beckett played Mozart and Chopin from memory.

According to Beckett biographer James Knowlson, there were other places to de-stress too. Some of the project team were known to pass evenings in a bordello, where the ambulance – occasionally driven by Beckett – was a common sight.

By contrast, while showing a colleague around Notre Dame in Paris in late 1945, it was noted that Beckett “pounced on a little rosary beads” from a stall to bring back as a present for his assistant store manager, a devout Catholic.

Short as his time in Saint-Lô was, it had a profound effect. At the very least, it coincided with the start of “a frenzy of writing” in which, over the next few years, he would produce the prose trilogy Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnameable, as well as the breakthrough play Waiting for Godot.
(Read more)

 

CLOWN EXHIBITION OFFERS FASCINATING INSIGHT INTO IRISH CIRCUS LIFE  · Aug 20th

(Ralph Riegel’s article appeared in the Irish Independent, 8/20/26; Clown Maycon Fernandes heads for his show at Tom Duffy’s Circus in Antrim © Mark Condren.)   

 

Collection was lifelong work of late Duffy’s legend Jimmy Noonan, aka Rainbow the Clown

A collection of clown memorabilia aims to highlight Ireland’s long circus tradition.

The exhibition focuses on the collection of James ‘Jimmy’ Noonan, who was known and loved as Rainbow the Clown in Tom Duffy’s Circus for many decades.

The Cork-based performer was hailed as “a true showman” and was part of the circus experience for generations of Irish children.

Mr Noonan adored circus life, and was remarkably knowledgeable about Irish circus history and the great characters it produced.

In 2018, he was part of the Duffy’s Circus family who received a Silver Clown award at the 7th New Generation Monte Carlo Festival.

Duffy’s won that and five other awards for their Wheel of Death presentation, and were invited by Princess Stephanie of Monaco to appear in the main show.

Mr Noonan died in October, 2023, and his collection passed to the Atkins family in Dunmanway, west Cork.

Over his lifetime, he had collected virtually everything associated with clowns, from outfits to photos and figurines to circus posters. His figurine collection eventually grew to include over 600 porcelain and ceramic clowns.

Some of the items he collected were over 100 years old.

Clowns are proud of their unique outfits and their performance routines, and it is considered unforgivable for one to copy another’s act or costume.

Mr Noonan’s Rainbow the Clown character became one of the most famous in Europe.

(Read more)

***** MAN SINGS THE SAME SONG OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR AN HOUR REVIEW – FRINGE GEM LEAVES YOU ECSTATIC · Aug 18th

(Brian Logan’s article appeared in the Guardian, 8/17/26; Photo: We are all involved by the end … Australian clown Conk in Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour. Photograph: Madeline Royce.)

Summerhall, Edinburgh
Connor Dariol, AKA Australian clown Conk, does exactly what he claims – and with such skill and relentless pep we are helpless to resist

When I saw the title to the Australian clown Conk’s show Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour, I thought I knew what the trick would be. Yes, the terms of the show’s billing would be fulfilled, but (I imagined) by twisting whatever that song was into a diverting variety of new shapes – rather as the comedy trio Sheeps did when performing the same sketch repeatedly for an hour way back in 2014.

More fool me, for doubting that Conk – AKA Connor Dariol – would keep things as ruthlessly simple as his Ronseal title suggests. He really does sing the same song over and again, with the same backing track and surprisingly little embellishment, for 60 minutes – with a bloody great clock marking the limits of your endurance on an upstage screen. And wait until you hear what song it is! Its opening chords are greeted by an aghast laugh from the audience. Reader, this experience felt like an endurance test before that song had reached the end of its first cycle.

One recalls with unease that the US military tortured people during the “war on terror” by playing bad songs at them over and again.

(Read more)

***** ANGELS IN AMERICA REVIEW – TONY KUSHNER’S FIVE-HOUR FEVER DREAM PREDICTS AND REFLECTS THE US AT 250 · Aug 16th

(Mark Fisher’s article appeared in the Guardian, 8/16/26; Visitations … Angels in America. Photograph: Golin/Edinburgh international festival.)

King’s theatre, Edinburgh
People, ideas and scenes wash over each other in Ivo van Hove’s masterly staging at the Edinburgh international festival

Could Tony Kushner’s sprawling fever-dream of a play now have come of age? It is 35 years since the two-part epic had its premiere in San Francisco when the memory of its Aids-crisis setting a few years earlier was still acute. Today, enough time has passed for us to see it in perspective: the historical moment in the mid 1980s when a new and initially untreatable virus was spreading, primarily among gay men, at the same time as reactionary conservative forces were in the ascendant under the two presidential terms of Ronald Reagan.

In an Edinburgh international festival that is asking questions of the United States in the 250th anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence, Angels in America seems to predict and reflect the contradictory nation of today.

Subtitled A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, the five-hour play lays out a set of competing ideologies as if psychoanalysing the country: the guilt of Judaism, the forgiveness of Catholicism, the repression of Mormonism, the liberation of being out and proud, the self-hatred of being closeted, and the law-of-the-jungle individualism that stokes right-wing thought.

“America has rediscovered itself,” says Joe Pitt (Krisjan Schellingerhout), a Republican Mormon, believing that, under Reagan, his country has reclaimed a “sacred position among nations”. Such messianic idealism runs counter to reality. There is a hole in the ozone layer, points out Harper (Eefje Paddenburg), his wife, and only a particular type of sociopath, such as Joe’s idol Roy Cohn (Hans Kesting), would be proud that this is “no country for the infirm”.

Joe and Roy are symbols of a nation eating itself from the inside. Joe, because he cannot square his conservative values with being secretly gay. Roy, because he associates homosexuality with weakness: “Roy Cohn is a heterosexual man … who fucks around with guys.” The play does not mention it, but in the 70s and 80s, this real-life New York lawyer and kingmaker represented Donald Trump.

So far so polemical, but the appeal of Kushner’s play is the way it blurs into the mythic with its feverish hallucinations. Characters end up in each other’s dreams, there are visitations from horny angels, Harper treats her Valium like a passport to faraway places and even the brutish Roy is haunted by Ethel Rosenberg (Marieke Heebink), a woman condemned to death as a result of his prosecution.

It is this dreamlike quality that pervades Ivo van Hove’s masterly staging for Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, first seen in 2008 and performed here in Dutch, with English surtitles. Actors seem to appear out of nowhere on Jan Versweyveld’s edgeless set, empty but for a counter with a couple of turntables blasting out favourites by David Bowie, a musician whose stridency and vulnerability are a good match for the play. There are no doors, beds, tables or phones; just a fluid movement of people and ideas as scenes wash over each other.

(Read more)

CHINA’S NEW ‘ETHNIC UNITY’ LAW LOOMS OVER CLOSED-DOOR TRIAL OF KAZAKH WRITER · Aug 14th

(Zamira Eshanova’s article appeared on Radio Free Europe, 8/14/26. Photo: Zhengis Reskhan (left) with members of his family in an undated handout photo.)

After months of uncertainty, the family of prominent ethnic Kazakh writer and satirist Zhengis Reskhan has learned that he faces a closed-door trial in China and could spend a decade in prison.

Reskhan has been detained since March 19 following months of police interrogations. Until now, his family had received no official confirmation of where he was being held and had no contact with him.

Reskhan’s family says Chinese police had previously accused him of having “extremist” ideas, an allegation conveyed to them verbally. He is now accused of “undermining ethnic unity,” according to his son, Nartai Zhengis.

Nartai said his father’s trial is scheduled for August 15 and will be held in secret. He told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service that his father’s lawyer informed the family that “no one will be allowed to attend the trial.”

Reskhan’s wife, Nartai’s mother, will also be barred from the proceedings, he said, adding that the lawyer told him that once the court issues its verdict “the only information that might be made public would be something like: ‘He was sentenced to this many years in prison.’”

Family Seeks Answers After Prominent Kazakh Writer Disappears In Xinjiang

The family has been told that Reskhan could face up to 10 years’ imprisonment if convicted.

Nartai said the “undermining ethnic unity” allegation had been added to the earlier accusation that his father was guilty of “extremist thought.”

The family has not seen an indictment or other court documents identifying the legal basis for the accusation.

A Test Case?

The charge comes shortly after China’s Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress took effect on July 1. Adopted by the National People’s Congress in March, the controversial measure establishes a broad legal framework for interethnic relations and includes provisions concerning conduct deemed to undermine ethnic unity.

Whether the allegation against Reskhan is being brought under the new law remains unclear.

If the case falls under this legislation, it could provide an early indication of how the law is being applied to ethnic minority defendants.

Fears Mount In Kazakhstan As Beijing’s ‘Ethnic Unity Law’ Looms Across The Border

Beijing says its provisions will “strengthen the rule of law” and “better protect” the rights of China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups. The measure, however, has drawn criticism from advocacy organizations, UN experts, the European Union, and Western governments over concerns that it could further restrict minority rights and extend Beijing’s ethnic policies beyond China’s borders.

UN experts warned in April that the statute risked entrenching “a uniform approach to ethnic relations across all regions,” while Human Rights Watch and the European Parliamenthave called for its repeal. Beijing has rejected international criticism of the legislation as a “malicious smear” and interference in China’s internal affairs.

Separately, Amnesty International issued a call on July 14 calling for Reskhan’s immediate release unless Chinese authorities can provide “sufficient credible and admissible evidence” that he committed an internationally recognized criminal offense.

‘Unlawful From The Very Beginning’

Chinese authorities have remained tight-lipped about Reskhan’s case, including the legal basis for the allegations against him.

“We have received no response whatsoever from the Chinese side,” his son said.

As a Kazakh citizen living in Kazakhstan, Nartai has appealed to Astana to intervene — a sensitive issue for a government that has long balanced concerns over the treatment of ethnic Kazakhs in China with close political and economic ties to Beijing.

According to Nartai, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry told him that his father is a Chinese citizen and that the case falls under Beijing’s jurisdiction. The ministry advised the family to seek assistance from the relevant Chinese authorities, he said.

(Read more)

 

HOLLYWOOD ENCORE: HOW ‘PRO-SHOT’ BROADWAY SHOWS BECAME A MAJOR DRAW ON THE BIG SCREEN · Aug 13th

(Jesse Hassenger’s article appeared in the Guardian, 8/13/2026; A still from Hadestown: The Musical. Photograph: LD Entertainment.)

Filmed versions of hit shows such as Hadestown, Hamilton and SIX have been transformed into cinematic events for those without hundreds to spend on tickets

It’s long been a source of frustration for theater fanatics: many Broadway shows, even those that don’t become years-long fixtures of the Great White Way, are professionally filmed, but often only for archival purposes, not public consumption. For years, those living outside of the greater New York City area unwilling to make an expensive trip of seeing a particular show were limited to the hierarchy of a touring company, a local production, or maybe, some years later for a particularly notable show, an airing of a filmed version on PBS. If all else fails, they could hope for an inevitably disappointing film version that failed to recapture the onstage magic. Starting in 2005, there were also occasional Fathom Events presentations of filmed stage shows, typically made available for one or two nights at a time, at premium prices (and looking more like ultra-big TV than polished cinema, at least at first).

Lately, though, so-called “pro-shot” movies – those filmed versions that used to pop up on public television’s American Playhouse or Great Performances series, as with the 1989 version of Into the Woods, aired two years after shooting but decades before Disney got around to making its Meryl Streep version – have been elbowing their way to the front of the line as a Broadway alternative. The highest-profile pro-shot so far has been Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash Hamilton, intended to debut on the big screen but thrown to Disney+ during the pandemic-inspired yearlong break from wide theatrical releases. No surprise that the sudden ability to watch the original cast perform the most talked-about Broadway show in years from the comfort of the couch became an at-home event.

It was a bit surprising, though, that five years later, Disney put Hamilton in movie theaters anyway – and that it cleaned up at the box office, despite or maybe because of how many fans already knew the show from a streaming service. By then, Hamilton was a pop-culture phenomenon featuring many now-familiar faces, inspiring fans attending at least one Manhattan theater to dress in costume for its opening night at the cinema (so, between Off-Broadway, Broadway, post-pandemic Broadway, and Disney+, at least its fifth opening night overall). Obviously that particular masterpiece draws particularly fanatical devotion.

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***** B​UGGERS REVIEW – PHENOMENAL FLESH AND BLOOD PORTRAIT OF FRANCIS BACON AND GEORGE DYER · Aug 12th

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
The painter and his lover are played with real intensity by Alistair Hall and Peter Clements, in a visceral psychodrama of contained violence and sadness

The famously fraught relationship between the artist Francis Bacon and his lover-muse, George Dyer, has been much documented. So it is remarkable that this play by Alistair Hall makes the story so utterly fresh and arresting. Hall has drawn on documents and letters from the Francis Bacon estate, but if Buggers is anchored in research, it leads with physicality, charged with eroticism and contained violence.

Hall plays Bacon, and Peter Clements portrays Dyer, with absolute conviction. Clements’ performance as an initially swaggering man, who Bacon airily describes as his “delicious piece of rough trade” and who over the years succumbs to alcoholism, is especially astute and vulnerable.

​The play begins in 1963 with a wordless sequence that shows their first night together, drawn somewhere between a wrestling match and an act of passion. The choreography retains its visceral threat throughout (great work by movement director Ken Nakajima). They could be Pinter’s men as they circle one another barefoot on Rosie Elnile’s set, which is somewhere between a Bohemian apartment and a wet-room, complete with toilet and tub.Beautifully directed by Alice Wordsworth, the two-hander proceeds to capture the full span of their intense, complicated love – a melange of eroticism, sadomasochistic power-play and cruelty – from this first charged night to Dyer’s death in a Paris hotel room in 1971.​

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ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER URGES BROADWAY COMMUNITY TO ADDRESS ‘UNSUSTAINABLE’ COST OF LIVE THEATER · Aug 11th

(JD Knapp’s article appeared on The Wrap. 8/8. Andrew Lloyd Webber attends the West End Opening Night of “Evita” at the London Palladium on July 1, 2025. (Simon Ackerman/Getty Images.)

“I’m gutted that the wonderful Broadway production of ‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’ is closing today,” the Tony winner says

Andrew Lloyd Webber mourned the premature closing of “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” on Saturday, while urging his fellow members of the Broadway community to get real about the current state of live theater.

“I’m gutted that the wonderful Broadway production of ‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’ is closing today,” he wrote on Instagram. “I’m immensely proud to have been a part of an incredibly daring production whose cast and creative team broke new ground on Broadway and gave 17 actors their Broadway debut.”

“Maybe the show’s closing just might be remembered as the moment that caused everyone involved with Broadway to come to their senses and address the unsustainable cost of producing and running any new show on The Great White Way, let alone daring new work,” Webber continued. “My undying thanks to the producers and investors and everyone who believed in Jellicle Cats. I won’t forget you.”

The ballroom culture-inspired revival first opened Off-Broadway in June 2024 and was twice extended before eventually transferring to the Broadhurst Theatre in April. It then won three Tonys at the 2026 Tony Awards in June, out of nine nominations — Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch for Best Direction of a Musical, Qween Jean for Best Costume Design of a Musical, and Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles for Best Choreography.

(Read more)

SPIDERWOMAN THEATER’S BLOCK PARTY POW WOW: AN INDIGENOUS CELEBRATION, SATURDAY, AUGUST 15 (BROOKLYN) · Aug 9th

(via Ron Lasko, Spin Cycle.)

SPIDERWOMAN THEATER’S BLOCK PARTY POW WOW:
AN INDIGENOUS CELEBRATION
Saturday, August 15 in Brooklyn
* Honoring the 100th Birthday of company co-founder Gloria Miguel *

 
Spiderwoman Theater — the oldest, continually running, Native feminist theater company in the Americas — will celebrate its 50th Anniversary with SPIDERWOMAN THEATER’S BLOCK PARTY POW WOW: AN INDIGENOUS CELEBRATION on Saturday, August 15. This family-friendly afternoon of art, culture, heritage and neighborhood unity will be held on DeGraw Street between Court and Smith Streets on the border of historic Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill (easily accessible from the F & G lines at Carroll Street Station) from 1pm – 5pm. It is free and open to the public, no reservations required. For more information visit www.spiderwomantheater.org.
 
In the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s, Boerum Hill, Red Hook, and Cobble Hill were home to a vibrant Native community: Mohawks from Kahnewake, who built New York’s bridges and skyscrapers, and the Western tribes, all found freedom in NYC to practice their songs, dances, and ceremonies in the community where founding members of Spiderwoman Theater, the Miguel sisters, were born and grew up. Now, the Miguels will open up their childhood block for SPIDERWOMAN THEATER’S BLOCK PARTY POW WOW: AN INDIGENOUS CELEBRATION, a look back at the history of the community and the neighborhood where Spiderwoman was born… and Gloria, the eldest Spiderwoman, will be féted as she marks her 100th birthday.
 
On August 15, in the heart of Brooklyn, SPIDERWOMAN THEATER’S BLOCK PARTY POW WOW: AN INDIGENOUS CELEBRATION will be a sea of color with Indigenous dancers, drummers and singers. Newly announced performers include: drummers Wicozani (from CT); The Tonepahhote Dancers, Joe Cross, Alyssa Mosely and Jamie John; the soulful storytelling and shimmering vocal blend of Ms. Josephine and David Terhune with vocalists Jayden Avery Love and ISA; and Aanmitaagzi (Penny Couchie, Sid Bobb and Ouske Couchie-Bobb) from Nipissing First Nation with dancers from their Summer Arts Program. Previously announced performers include the NYC drum, SilverCloud Singers; and MC Louis Mofsie of the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers. In addition to neighborhood vendors and speakers, there will also be screened excerpts of Spiderwoman’s work and on Spiderwoman’s stoop, an excerpt of “Tipi Tales from the Stoop,” Murielle Borst-Tarrant’s one woman show. This event is curated by Josephine Tarrant.
 
SPIDERWOMAN THEATER’S BLOCK PARTY POW WOW: AN INDIGENOUS CELEBRATION kicks off a year-long celebration that will continue in Autumn of 2026 as Spiderwoman Theater takes over La MaMa’s main East 4th Street location for two weeks, highlighting Indigenous artists from across Turtle Island and the world for a unique mixture of performances, workshops and a visual arts exhibit that will be open to the public.
 
SPIDERWOMAN THEATER is the oldest, continually running, Native feminist theater company in the Americas and is situated in the NYC Indigenous and arts communities. Activism, self- determination and storytelling are at the core of Spiderwoman’s programming and is rooted in an urban Indigenous sensibility. Live theater performance and production are the vehicles by which those core principles and values are shared with our communities and audiences. Since 1976, our body of work has addressed critical cultural, social and political issues in the Indigenous and women’s communities. Our work is informed by traditional artistic expression, teachings and values which bridge traditional cultural practice and Western theater sensibilities. The practice of creating our theater is “storyweaving”, where personal and traditional stories are layered with movement, text, sound, music and visual images. This weaving of stories is the foundation upon which we build Spiderwoman productions and a framework for our training and outreach activities. www.spiderwomantheater.org

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CONSTANT STANISLAVSKI (172) · Aug 8th

The words and wisdom of Constantin Stanislavski:

We know that Shakespeare re-created stories by others. That is what we do to the work of the dramatist, we bring to life what is hidden under the words; we put our own thoughts into the author’s lines, and we establish our own relationships to other characters in the play, and the conditions of their lives; we filter through ourselves all the materials that we receive from the author and the director; we work over them, supplementing them out of our own imagination. That material becomes part of us, spiritually, and even physically; our emotions are sincere, and as a final result we have truly productive activity–all of which is closely interwoven with the implications of the play. (AP)