Author, Art Historian
Interests: literature, film, theater, classics, archaeology, classical literature, ancient greece, classical archaeology, off-broadway theater books
… for sure come to Cabaret …
If you want to see a top-notch production of one of the best American musicals, see Cabaret at the North Fork Community Theatre. The songs, the musical splendor, the theatrical extravaganza and the powerful story are wonderfully realized in this production, and with an orchestra of eight fine players – you don’t always get live music like that on Broadway.
… the force of destiny …
Here’s an amazing experience! You walk into a small off-Broadway theater. The stage is about as minimal as can be – mainly there’s a baffle board at the back and an upright piano to the side. Early on Antigone, kneeling, agonized by Creon’s order forbidding burial for the body of her rebellious brother, expresses her anguish with an operatic soprano aria, “Pace, pace, mio Dio” from Verdi’s La Forza del destino. What a shock! And what a way to convey intense emotion in a play.
… all the world’s a vanity fair …
This is a mind-expanding production of Vanity Fair. It’s also funny, extravagant and visually fascinating.
… not so lucky …
Set in a well-to-do English environment of the early twentieth century, The Lucky One is a story of two brothers: Gerald (Robert David Grant), the younger, the parents’ favorite, is blithely successful at everything, from sports, to girl friends, to his big job in the foreign office. Bob (Ari Brand), farmed out to a barrister’s office where he never should have been (but then, where should he be?), seethes with jealousy and bitterness.
And now the primal insult: Gerald has stolen Bob’s girl, Pamela (Paton Ashbrook).
… the party’s over …
It looks like a party — all those banquet tables (my heart lifted as I thought we’d be served refreshments!) But don’t try to take a seat. Only one figure is seated at a table, and his plate is empty (left).
As you move through this world of white, you see the tables are cluttered with elegant but toppled empty goblets, plates and platters with ancient imagery, askew, moldy rolls, chicken bones and scavenger crabs. On others tables are recumbent figures, alive and dead, writhing humans entwined with tomb effigies. Black sculptures, with chalky white dust drifted onto them, surround and punctuate the “banquet.”
- The New York Times got it All WRONG.
- I kid you not.
* Friday, April 14, 2017, Weekend Arts II, “A Mini-Met Mashup on the Roof” by Jason Farago
It’s no mashup. My own review will follow as quickly as I can write it. Meanwhile, have a look …
For my full review, go up one or click here.
A Musical DEcomposition (my title)
A Musical DEcomposition — detail
… storytelling …
Actor-author Gary McNair recounts his granddad’s excitement at winning a big bet on the 1966 World Cup, and a lifelong quest to recreate the thrill.
… when China became China …
Here is an opportunity to see some of the most remarkable objects of art and archaeology excavated in China. Because some are so lavish, and in some cases unique, a number have been featured in Western publications including newspapers and magazines, but most have never been seen outside of China.The Qin and Han dynasties together make up the classical period of Chinese art and culture, when the basic forms of political organization and intellectual and artistic paradigms were formed. The key theme of this period, and of this exhibition, is unification of the vast territory of China under the powerful Qin emperor, Qinshihuang, and its maintenance and expansion in the Han dynasty.
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