Monthly Archives: October 2014

LOW/AUSTEN/ORWELL: ‘ANIMAL FARM’ AT STEPPENWOLF THEATRE COMPANY (REVIEW PICK, CHI) · Oct 26th

 

(Chris Jones’s article appeared in the Chicago Tribune, 10/19.)

Benjamin, the cynical, long-lived donkey who comes to regret not raising a hoof against tyrannical piggery, turns out to be the key to the Steppenwolf Theatre Company's blistering new 90-minute adaptation of George Orwell's "Animal Farm," the best production in the Steppenwolf for Young Adults program since "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 2010, and the third entry in a distinguished triptych of shows for youth that also includes Lydia R. Diamond's adaptation of Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" in 2005.

The erudite, empathetic ass, whom Orwell imbued with so many of the qualities that those of us who go along just to get along value, serves as the culpable narrator to all of the nefarious doings of the hoofed stand-ins for Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky, with the former, Napoleon, learning fast that a good squealer and a sharp-toothed security force can easily allow a savvy swine to throw slop down the throats of a gullible proletariat, ever anxious to think their leaders actually believe that all animals are equal.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/reviews/ct-animal-farm-play-review-20141019-column.html

LIAO YIMEI: ‘RHINOCEROS IN LOVE’ (LISTEN NOW ON BBC RADIO 3) · Oct 26th

A runaway success in China after its first staging in 1999, Liao Yimei's play is a dark romance about a rhinoceros keeper, Malu, who falls in love with his beautiful neighbour, Mingming.

Translation by Claire Conceison, adapted from previous translation by Mark Talacko
Original music by Zhang Guangtian, arranged for this production by David Chilton.

(Listen at)http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lpqnn

Credits

     

  

Role

  

   

Contributor

  

Writer

Liao   Yimei

Malu

Jason   Wong

Mingming

Vera   Chok

Toothbrush

Jonathan   Forbes

Daxian

Paul   Heath

Heizi

Shaun   Mason

Honghong

Liz   Sutherland

Lili

Bettrys   Jones

Love   Professor/TV Host

Monty   d'Inverno

Composer

Zhang   Guangtian

Director

Emma   Harding

Singer

Stephen   Weller

*****GRAHAM ROBB: ‘THE ANCIENT PATHS: DISCOVERING THE LOST MAP OF CELTIC EUROPE’ (BOOK REVIEW) · Oct 26th

(Tim Martin’s article appeared in the UK Telegraph, 10/12/13; via Pam Green.)

'Important if true” was the phrase that the 19th-century writer and historian Alexander Kinglake wanted to see engraved above church doors. It rings loud in the ears as one reads the latest book by Graham Robb, a biographer and historian of distinction whose new work, if everything in it proves to be correct, will blow apart two millennia of thinking about Iron Age Britain and Europe and put several scientific discoveries back by centuries.

Rigorously field-tested by its sceptical author, who observes drily that “anyone who writes about Druids and mysteriously coordinated landscapes, or who claims to have located the intersections of the solar paths of Middle Earth in a particular field, street, railway station or cement quarry, must expect to be treated with superstition”, it presents extraordinary conclusions in a deeply persuasive and uncompromising manner. What surfaces from these elegant pages – if true – is nothing less than a wonder of the ancient world: the first solid evidence of Druidic science and its accomplishments and the earliest accurate map of a continent.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10372050/The-Ancient-Paths-Discovering-the-Lost-Map-of-Celtic-Europe-review.html

KUSHNER: ‘ANGELS IN AMERICA’ FROM IVO VAN HOVE (REVIEW PICK, NY) · Oct 25th

 

(Ben Brantley’s article appeared in The New York Times, 10/24.)

The stage of the Harvey Theater has surely never before looked so vast, or so empty. With no scenery to speak of except for one feeble little table, it looms as a black chasm that stretches far beyond the traditional barriers of walls and proscenium arches. You imagine how lonely it must feel to be up there.

That naked space is also a mirror, accurate and unforgiving, of the densely populated city that stretches beyond this outpost of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I mean New York, or any of those densely crowded places where it’s easy to think that the person next to you in the subway or the elevator, or even in bed, might as well be on the other side of the world. 

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KATE TEMPEST: ‘WE LIVE IN CRAZY TIMES. YOU CAN’T TELL A STORY WITHOUT IT FEELING POLITICAL’ · Oct 25th

(Dorian Lynskey’s article appeared in the Guardian, 10/23.)

The day after I meet the rapper Kate Tempest she sends me a long, eloquent email explaining her strange mood during the interview. It all started with the appearance of her remarkable debut album, Everybody Down, on the Mercury music prize shortlist last month. She was flattered, of course, but also surprised. When I say the bookies had her pegged as the favourite weeks in advance, she shakes her head, baffled. “I don’t know how they managed to think that was a likelihood.”

Tempest is no stranger to acclaim. Her 2012 “spoken story” Brand New Ancients won the Ted Hughes Prize for innovation in poetry. Her debut play Wasted was praised as “electrifying” and “ingenious”. She has just been named a Next Generation poet by the Poetry Book Society. But poetry and theatre are small, secluded worlds compared to the floodlit arena of pop. After the Mercury announcement, she was suddenly semi-famous, the subject of newspaper profiles and online comments, and “it spun me out”.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/23/kate-tempest-we-live-in-crazy-times-you-cant-tell-a-story-without-it-feeling-political

PODCAST: ‘WHEN ROMEO WAS A WOMAN’ FROM FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY · Oct 23rd

(via Pam Green)

Listen to the podcast at: http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=4890

I will assume thy part in some disguise
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio
—Much Ado About Nothing (1.1.316)

The actress Charlotte Cushman was a theatrical icon in 19th century America, known to the press by her first name, like Beyonce today. Her fame was not, however, for conventionally Victorian feminine portrayals.

Cushman specialized in playing male roles, principally Romeo and Hamlet, competing on equal terms with leading actors like Edwin Forrest and Edwin Booth. She was not the only actress of her time to attempt these parts, but Cushman’s style was uniquely assertive and athletic. When Queen Victoria saw Cushman as Romeo, she said she couldn’t believe it was a woman playing the part.

Rebecca Sheir, host of the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series, interviews Lisa Merrill, professor in the Department of Performance Studies at Hofstra University and author of When Romeo Was a Woman, about Cushman’s professional and personal life, including her off-stage romantic partnerships with women and her changing public image after death.

IRELAND: NO COUNTRY FOR RENAISSANCE MEN? · Oct 23rd

(Eric Haywood’s article appeared in the Irish Times, 10/23.)

In 1513, shortly after completing The Prince, Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote a letter to a friend describing his life on the farm to which he had been banished following the return to Florence of the Medici, against whom he was suspected of having plotted. It was a boring life, and Machiavelli would much rather still have been involved in the hustle and bustle of politics. But, “come evening,” he wrote, “I enter into the ancient courts of ancient men where, received lovingly, I seek nourishment from that food which is mine alone […]and for the next four hours I do not have any worries.”

What Machiavelli is referring to is what Petrarch (1304-74), the poet and so-called Founding Father of the Renaissance, dubbed “talking with books”. The Renaissance is the period when Europeans were taught to put their faith in books. Books, they were told, had the answers to Life and so were worth studying. Yet it was not just any books they should study. Above all it was the books of the ancients: the Greeks and especially the Romans. 

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/ireland-no-country-for-renaissance-men-1.1969986

(Eric Hayward’s article appeared in the Irish Times, 10/23.)

In 1513, shortly after completing The Prince, Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote a letter to a friend describing his life on the farm to which he had been banished following the return to Florence of the Medici, against whom he was suspected of having plotted. It was a boring life, and Machiavelli would much rather still have been involved in the hustle and bustle of politics. But, “come evening,” he wrote, “I enter into the ancient courts of ancient men where, received lovingly, I seek nourishment from that food which is mine alone […]and for the next four hours I do not have any worries.”

What Machiavelli is referring to is what Petrarch (1304-74), the poet and so-called Founding Father of the Renaissance, dubbed “talking with books”. The Renaissance is the period when Europeans were taught to put their faith in books. Books, they were told, had the answers to Life and so were worth studying. Yet it was not just any books they should study. Above all it was the books of the ancients: the Greeks and especially the Romans. 

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/ireland-no-country-for-renaissance-men-1.1969986

*****FLORIAN ZELLER: ‘THE FATHER’ (REVIEW PICK, UK) · Oct 23rd

(Lyn Gardner’s article appeared in the Guardian, 10/23.)

There is usually a moment in the theatre, often after the first few minutes or the first few scenes, when you start to relax into a play. You are confident that you have a grip on it; all anxiety about making sense of the action disappears. It’s not so in Florian Zeller’s slippery but hugely rewarding play about Andre (Kenneth Cranham), an elderly man with dementia, and the efforts of his daughter Anne (Lia Williams) to balance her love for her father and the need to care for him with the demands of her own life and relationship with Pierre (Colin Tierney).

Winner of the 2014 Molière award for France’s best play, The Father makes us see things as if through the confused eyes of Andre, as he struggles to make sense of a progressively befuddling world. Sound grim? It’s not. It’s a play that constantly confounds expectations and works almost like a thriller, with a sinister Pinteresque edge, as complete strangers keep on turning up in Andre’s flat.

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/oct/23/the-father-review-ustinov-theatre-royal-bath-florian-zeller

*****‘LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST/LOVE’S LABOUR’S WON’ (REVIEW PICK, UK) · Oct 22nd

 

(Dominic Cavendish’s article appeared in the U.K. Telegraph, 10/16.)

Maybe it was the rain bucketing down outside but I approached this double-helping of Shakespearean comedy with an autumnal sense of gloom.

Love’s Labour’s Lost, that early play groaning with dense verbal wit, has been yoked in the RSC’s repertoire to that familiar beast Much Ado About Nothing – here restyled Love’s Labour’s Won, a title that might refer to a lost work but was likely an alternate name for an existing play, perhaps Much Ado.

There’s one director (Christopher Luscombe), one designer (Simon Higlett), one company (of 23) and a unifying concept: the earlier play has been set on the eve of the First World War; the later, greater comedy has been reframed to picture the men returning home in 1918. A neat-enough centenary tie-in but hardly the sort of thing to put a spring in your step.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/11167470/Loves-Labours-LostLoves-Labours-Won-Royal-Shakespeare-Theatre-review.html 

PLAYING FALSTAFF · Oct 22nd

(Matt Trueman’s article appeared in the Guardian, 10/21.)

As a woman, I never expected to play Falstaff – but that meant I didn’t feel daunted by the part. You’re not following in anyone’s footsteps. That’s quite freeing.

Falstaff’s often this old man with a white beard, bumbling around the stage – a fool and a jester. I saw him differently, as an old soldier who’d slipped into villainy. He’s getting older and can’t get away with the things he once did. I saw a man looking for a way out. I’m from a working-class background and my family’s got its fair share of villains. Falstaff’s got the same charisma and brutality that they do. They’re very funny, but they can turn at any second. I wanted to come up with a Falstaff you’d want to have a pint with, but you wouldn’t like to meet down a dark alley. You can’t take your eyes off him for a second. Falstaff’s smart. Playing him like an idiot is a mistake.

Our production’s set in a women’s prison. We’re all playing prisoners first, who are performing Shakespeare’s play, so we interpret the characters as they might. It takes a while to get your head around. My Falstaff is a reflection of the men in this woman’s life, how they’ve treated her over the years; men that have been laughing with her one moment, then grabbed her by the throat the next.

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/oct/21/joss-ackland-ashley-mcguire-playing-falstaff-shakespeare