GLENN LONEY'S ARTS RAMBLES December, 2011
THIS WAS THE MONTH THAT WAS…
Christmas Thoughts…
Suddenly, Shining in the Firmament, there
was a Heavenly Host, Singing War on Earth &
Death to the Enemies of Peace…
No, no! That doesn't sound Right… Neo
Liberal, Pentagon Speak, possibly…
A Great Star, more Magnificent than
any ever seen before, moved magically through the Heavens.
It came to rest over a Simple Manger, from
which Angry Protestors were being Ousted by the
Riot Police of King Herodes Bloombergiana.
But on Mount Palomar, the Giant Telescope
revealed that this Flaming Wonder was only Lady Gaga,
off on her World Tour…
From the Aurora Borealis came a Heavenly
Chorus: Greetings! Unto you is Born, this Day, in Bethlehem,
PA, a Saviour which is either Mitt Romney or Newt
Gingrich. Take your pick…
Out of the East came Three Wisemen--Robert
Rubin, Lloyd Blankfein, & Tim Geithner--come to
Worship at the Cradle of Capitalist Civilization.
This was a Great Astonishment, as you do
not get many Wise Men anymore, East or West…
This was the Year of the Dragon, which should
have been much more promising than the Years of
the Rat, the Snake, or the Rabbit…
But It Came To Pass, that, Lo!, The Angel of
Death did appear unto the Brothers Koch & all those
Fellow War Loving/Profit Hungry One Per Centers
saying thusly:
O Ye Merchants of Death! Take Heed!
It is Required that Thou shalt soweth the Seeds
of Fear & Terror throughout the Land, so that National Security
& Massive Surveillance shall never cease & Thy 99 Per
Center People shall live in a State of Perpetual War unto the
Day of The Last Judgment!
Saying that & spreading His Magnificently
Radiant Golden Wings, The Angel did Rise over the Humble
Manger & Thrust into Outer Space, like a
Stealth Drone, Zooming Homeward toward what many
Simple Folk on the Globe Below did believe might
somewhere contain Heaven, where there were Many Mansions
waiting for them, in the Event of Nuclear Destruction
of the Planet Earth!
DAFFY DEFINITIONS:
STOCKING STUFFERS: For the Man Without
a Leg To Stand on, these are useless!
POST XMAS SALES: 50 to 70% Off, just
to get this Stuff out of the Store as no one in His/Her
Right Mind would be Caught Dead wearing such Tatty
Junk. Made in Occupied China, of course…
HOLIDAY PLANNING: Do not get that
Xmas Tree from Upstate New York until 26 December,
when most of what remain will have been abandoned in the
Gutters of the Upper West Side!
PASSING GLANCES AT SCENES SEEN:
•Let's Beat Those Commie Russkis! The CIA Covertly
Arms What Became the Taliban!
•Shen Wei Finds Artful Ways To Fill the Park
Avenue Armory with Dance Arts.
•Getting Falling Down Drunk & Trashing a
Motel Room on Derby Day…
•The Monstrous Golem Comes from Prague to East
Fourth Street: Be Clay Once Again!
•Rent Began Life at the New York Theatre
Workshop: Will Once Move to Broadway?
•Antiquities at Christie's: Headless Statues
& Bronze Man Without a Leg To Stand on!
•James DePriest at Carnegie Hall: Siwoo Kim Is
Juilliard Orchestra Violin Soloist!
•Stick Fly at the Cort: Family Problems
for Prosperous Blacks on Martha's Vineyard!
•One of Those Coen Brothers Returns: Happy
Hour on West 42nd Not So Much Fun…
•All Women Are Not Like That, Amadeus:
Così fan tutte at the Manhattan School.
•Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape at BAM: Not
Sam's Last Crap, by Any Means.
•Ay, Federico! Lorca's Bow Tie at the
Duke: Young Artists in New York Tie It On!
•Ana Tzarev Explodes Her Paint Tubes To Celebrate
Russian Fairytales.
•For Booklovers & Others at the Grolier:
Imperial French Type Dies in Many Languages…
•Sex in All Its Possible Forms & Positions:
Burning Down on Theatre Row!
•No Calorie Counts on the Meat Pies in Titus
Andronicus: Don't Eat Your Kids!
•Maple & Vine Is Not Hollywood &
Vine: It's a Made Up 1950s "Family Values" Town!
•The Frick's New Glassed Portico: Looking Out
on the Forbidden Garden.
•Afternoon at the Asia Society: Sarah Sze's Fine
Lines, Plus Coins on the Floor…
•A Moment at MoMA: Sanja Ivekovic--Women's Issues/Women's
Photo Portraits!
•Brooklyn Museum Library & Others at Bonham's:
Librarians' Night Among Autographs.
•On a Clear Day, You Can See Harry Connick,
Jr!
•Potential Brain Damage at the Park Ave Armory:
STREB…Falling on Mats from Heights!
•Juilliard at Tully: From Mozart's Jupiter
To Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet.
•Shanghai Cirque at New Vic: Everything
That Streb Was Not!
•Elizabeth Taylor's Jewels Dazzle at Christie's
Sale: $156.8 Million, Plus Luggage!
•A Bread & Puppet Christmas with Two Quite
Different Shows: Attica for Xmas?
•Three Met Press Previews: Renaissance Portraits,
Duncan Phyfe, Plus Amer Ind Artifacts.
•Chopping Down The Cherry Orchard
Down on East 13th! But No Axe Sounds?
•Once, There Was Carmen Jones: Now We
Have Lysistrata Jones, Who's No Relation…
•Bonnie & Clyde: Where Is Faye Dunaway
When We Need Her? Warren Beatty?
End of Month Rambles Summary:
Blood & Gifts: The CIA Arms the Taliban--Anything
To Defeat the Soviets & Win the Cold War!
At last: an Adult Play by an Adult Playwright!
Blood & Gifts--ingeniously orchestrated
by JT Rogers--offers us the Devious CIA Foreplay
that helped create the Taliban & tragically trapped
US in Afghanistan.
Driving the Soviet Troops out of Afghanistan
was part of our overall strategy of Winning the Cold War.
Effectually, we Outspent the Russkis!
Their Shaky Economy could not sustain all
the Armaments, Offensives, Occupations, & Manpower
required to maintain & even enlarge the vast Soviet Empire…
Rogers' taut drama spans a decade--1981 to 1991--in
which State, the Pentagon, & the CIA
tried to subvert the Soviet Occupiers in Afghanistan.
What we did not then understand was that You
Cannot Do Business With Pakistan's Military & You
Cannot Trust Afghan Tribesmen To Serve American Interests.
But why should they?
As in Iraq, Our Leaders, Generals,
& Spooks really understood nothing about the
Religious Differences among Sunnis, Shiites, &
other Visions of Islam…
Jeremy Davidson is earnest but baffled as James
Warnock, Our Man on the Ground, dealing with devious Pakis
& ferocious Mujahiden.
Billions have been swallowed up in this Military
Disaster, as we are told Our Boys are Winning the
Hearts & Minds of the Pashtuns & other Warring
Tribes.
The Grave of Empires: Afghanistan has long been
known by that Epithet. Why don't Our Leaders--not
to say Our Voters--Learn from History?
Blood & Gifts can explain a lot about What
Went Wrong.
But it's also very interesting--even at times amusing--on
the Human Level, especially when Warnock is enlisting the
cynical Brit [Jefferson Mays] in his Project &
trying to subvert the Soviets' Man, Dmitri Gromov
[Michael Aronov].
Entire Drill Floor at Park Avenue Armory Lavishly
Filled with Shen Wei's Dance Arts!
The Big Thrill for most of the large audience
for the Shen Wei Dance Arts Choreographies at the Park
Avenue Armory must surely have been the invitation to walk among
the Nearly Nude Dancers moving & lying on the Drill
Hall floor.
This was Undivided Divided, created especially
by Shen Wei for the Armory, where he & his Ensemble are In
Residence.
With the Drill Floor segmented into Rectangles
of Light--thanks to Jennifer Tipton--costume free dancers
moved, writhed, or lay within these Perimeters, as shoe
free audience members walked in the narrow paths between the Cells.
Close enough to touch…
Soon, dancers lay down in Blobs of Color,
writhing so that the Reds, Blues, Greens, Oranges, & Yellows
were smeared on their naked bodies.
When another dancer entered a Cell, the resulting
Dual Writhing looked rather like Mud Wrestling in
Color…
For Rite of Spring, the graceful dancers
were deployed on what seemed an Eccentric Grid, entranced
in Ritual Movements, eventually Climaxing, with
the Stravinsky Score.
Folding, originally created in 2000 in Guangdong
[Canton], was illuminated by dancers in long Red Gowns,
with Trains that were artfully whipped about. They moved slowly,
gracefully, into the Arena, then scooting off into the darkness
beyond.
The Red was then joined by the Black,
with some dancers paired, rather like On Horseback…
Because of the length of the gowns, the rapid repetition
of invisible tiny steps made some of these Figures look almost
like Robotic Entities, rolling along on unseen wheels.
Their Heads were extended with long
caps that suggested the flattened skulls of some exotic
Primitives…
A Haunting Experience!
Dysfunctional Brothers Drink Endless Beers &
Smash Motel Furniture on Derby Day.
Down in Louisville, Old Timers often stay
away from Churchill Downs for the annual running of the
Kentucky Derby. They stay home to watch it on TV or invite
neighbors over to share the excitement.
But down in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where they run
the Oaklawn Derby, a Dysfunctional Band of Brothers
are sitting in what looks like a Motel Room, betting on
the Ponies.
But, judging from their frantic looking out into
the audience, this room must be part of a grandstand structure
that accommodates Big Spenders.
They drink a lot of Beers & break some
Furniture, roughing up each other.
The Youngest--who's just out of Prison &
trying to Start Over--takes a shine to the pert Waitress
[Beth Wittig] who brings them their Beers. She's
leery of his proposals: Begin a New Life Out West…
When she pulls away, he knocks her down: what a
way to Win a Woman!
This was the World Premiere of Samuel
Brett Williams' play, staged by Michole Biancosino.
You'd hate to be on Stage Crew & have
to Clean Up the Mess after each performance…
Rabbi! Leave That Lump of Clay Alone! Prague
Doesn't Need a Golem--Except as a Puppet.
Not all Puppets are Equal. At least
not in Size…
In the Golem, recently seen at LaMaMa, the
more important Figures in the Marionette Version of this Prague
Legend are indeed taller than the others. They also move about
on roller platforms, guided by Handlers, who can move arms
& legs with strings, but also with their own hands.
As devised by Vít Horejs & choreographed
by Naomi Goldberg Haas, the Handlers are also, on occasion,
People of Prague & its Ancient Ghetto.
As elsewhere, especially in Eastern Europe, the
Jews of Prague were often hated & feared--not only
because they persisted in their Religion, instead
of converting to Christianity--but also because they were
believed to kill Christians & use their Blood
to make Passover Matzohs!
This is known as The Blood Libel…
That Medieval--& even later--Christians
could believe such a Bizarre Fantasy may not seem so strange
when you realize that, even today, Roman Catholics believe
Sacramental Wine becomes Christ's Holy Blood
when the Officiating Priest elevates the Chalice
at Mass.
If that is still ritually believed to occur, then
Christians of the Roman Rite, then & now, are practicing the
same Act of Cannibalism of which they accused the Jews!
Anyway, the very wise Rabbi Löw wanted
to protect the Jewish Community in the Ghetto.
So, from a Lump of Clay, he fashioned a Monstrous
Figure, into which he breathed Life, ordering it to
Protect the Jews.
This worked for a while, but the Golem was involved
in some serious & comic mishaps that increased Gentile
Fears.
So, Rabbi Löw put the Golem to sleep forever…
This fable is charmingly reprised by the Handlers
& Performers of the Czech American Marionette Theatre,
complete with a Klezmerishe Golem Band!
Some think the Creation of the Golem is just an
Ancient Tale, but Your Roving Arts Reporter thinks it may
be True!
When I first came to Prague, way back in 1957--when
the City & its People were engulfed in Soviet Communism--I
paid a visit to the fabled Old New Synagogue as well as
to the Grave of Rabbi Löw.
Inside the Synagogue, the German speaking Sexton
asked me if I wanted to see the Actual Clay from which
Rabbi Löw had fashioned the Golem?
Well, of course!
He opened a kind of door in a ceiling, pulling down
a counter weighted stair. We inched our way up into a dim
Kafka esque Attic.
There, in an old wooden box, was a Lump of Dry
Gray Clay…
So that Old Legend must be true, mustn't it?
In any case, neither the Golem nor the B'nai
B'rith have been able to destroy Anti Semitism…
Is Once Another Rent? In Modern
Dublin, Irish & Czechs Make Marvelous Music!
Down at the New York Theatre Workshop--where recently
Ernest Hemingway Characters from The Sun Also
Rises came to life again in a café style milieu--now
we have a full scale Dublin Pub, where Dubliners
& Czech Immigrants come together to make music &
even to love…
There's this moody, forlorn young Song Maker
whose girl has gone to America, leaving him abandoned &
fearing that his Talent has failed him.
Will he hang up his Guitar & give up
altogether?
Well, no. Because there's this fiery, intense Young
Czech Girl who believes in him & is determined
that he achieve all that is possible.
He, She--at the Piano, & all their friends
in the Pub will form a Band & make a Record!
Even the Bank's Loan Officer comes on board
with his Cello!
You may well want to get a copy of their CD!
Or to see this lively show again & again!
At the Intermission, you can get right up
on the stage & get Guinness at the Bar!
When & If Once moves to Broadway, will
we still be able to buy a Pint at the Interval?
Antiquities at Christie's: We Must Hope That
None of These Were Dug Up by Tomb Robbers!
One room at the Christie's Antiquities Auction
was devoted to the varied objects in John Kluge's
Collection. On Auction, not because he is desperate for cash,
but to benefit Columbia University!
In general, although there were some fine objects
on display, Torsos without Heads are not so compelling
as Busts without Bodies.
But, when a Nose is missing, you know Iconoclasts
were at work long, long ago. Defacing both Greek & Roman God
Portraits seems to have been a Duty of both Christians
& Muslims…
To say that the Monumental Roman Bronze Figure of
an Emperor didn't have a Leg to Stand on, was not
quite correct, as he still had One Leg…
It sold for $1,426,500. What it might have
brought, had he still had Two Legs, is anyone's guess.
Combined Sales totaled almost $15 million,
with a Roman Emblema of Cleopatra Selene going under
the hammer for $2,546,500!
Shortly after this Sale, 20th Century
Decorative Arts & Design went on Christie's Auction Block.
Most impressive was the Jean Dunand designed
Art Deco Breakfast Room of Templeton Crocker.
Dunand--who designed the famed Art Deco Panels
for the great ship Normandie--was commissioned by
Crocker, an Heir of The Big Four, who built the Union
Pacific Railroad: Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington,
Mark Hopkins, & the Ancestral Crocker.
Completed in 1929 for Templeton Crocker's
San Francisco Art Deco Apartment, the tout ensemble--fabricated
in Paris--was described in Vogue as "perhaps the
most beautiful apartment in the world."
In the Depths of The Great Depression, Crocker
at least had something to cheer him up…
His Dunand designed Bedroom is now in the
Metropolitan Museum!
DePriest at Carnegie: Vigorously Conducting the
Juilliard Orchestra from a Motorized Wheelchair.
Siwoo Kim, a talented young Korean, played Mozart's
"Turkish" Violin Concerto with nuance at the Juilliard Orchestra's
Carnegie Hall showcase.
The admired James DePriest--who conducts
from a Wheelchair, but nonetheless with vigor--also programmed
George Tsontakis' Perpetual Angelus & Tchaikovsky's
Pathétique Symphony No. 6, which was anything but
Pathetic. Rousing & thoughtful, by turns…
Cort Unveils Stick Fly: Privileged African
Americans Have Real Problems on Martha's Vineyard!
How would you feel, subbing for your
Ailing Mother as the taken for granted Black
Maid for a contentious but prosperous & privileged African
American Family--summering in its spacious Old Mansion
on Martha's Vineyard--to be told, over the phone, that
you are actually the Love Child of the pompous, strong
willed, Macho Paterfamilias?
Upset? Angry? Shocked? Disappointed? Revengeful?
All of the Above?
To find out how all this Unfolds in the LeVay
Household, you need to see Stick Fly, now at the Cort
Theatre.
There are Other Complications as well.
The Younger LeVay Son has brought his fiancée,
an angry Young African American, smarting under Racism
& studying the Bodies & Habits of Flies.
The Older LeVay Son has brought his fiancée,
whom he has described as Italian, although she is actually
a Pure bred White Wasp.
Unfortunately for Brotherly Amity, the Older
Son has already known sexually Younger Son's fiancée…
For the Self Satisfied, Self Centered Father, neither
Son measures up.
So there they all are, in this remarkable Landmark
Quality Summer Mansion, designed by David Gallo.
Lydia R. Diamond's lively, often comic,
Family Drama is sure to be a Best Play Nominée!
Dynamically directed by Kenny Leon, the excellent
Cast includes Dulé Hill, Mekhi Phifer, Tracie Thoms,
Condola Rashad, Rosie Benton, & Ruben Santiago Hudson.
The Drinks Are Not On the House: Happy
Hour at the Peter Norton Space!
Relatively speaking, Ethan Coen's
short play contribution to Relatively Speaking, on Broadway,
wasn't as unfortunate as Elaine May's. But Woody
Allen's rehash of Old Stuff was marginally better…
Now, over at the Peter Norton Space--formerly
The Signature Theatre--Coen is back with three long one
acters.
The trouble with the One Act Format, for
Coen, is that he doesn't know When To Stop, even when he
has a Cute Idea.
In End Days, there's this Guy ranting
at a Bar about all the Ills that ail us, that will
surely lead to the End of Everything.
Then there's this Other Guy at the Bar, seemingly
stupified by the Rant. The Bartender hardly notices…
For Your Arts Reporter, the Ranter was Right.
This could have been a Monologue--which it, effectually,
was.
But there was more, much more.
The Guy went home to read the paper & cut out
an item, pasting it in a bulging Scrapbook. Much like that
Guy in The Blue Flower, collaging away in his Scrapbook…
In City Lights, a foul mouthed, back up,
Failure of a Guitarist, but still a Member of the Musicians
Union, loses something in a Cab.
Trying to track down the Cab, he enters the Space
of Marcie, joined by her militant friend, Kim. There's
More. But it doesn't End Well…
The Playbill noted No Intermission,
but there was one, anyway.
Two of my Critic Colleagues took this opportunity
to go home. As did some of the Gray Panther Seniors at
this rainy day Matinée…
Wayfarer's Inn was even more Depressing,
even possibly Pointless.
What we need from Ethan Coen is more films devised
by him & his Brother Coen: Barton Fink, where
are you when we need you?
Neil Pepe staged for his Atlantic Theatre,
whose Church Premises are being renovated.
Thus Are They All: A Cosy Così
Up on Broadway…
Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio is clearly
set in a Sultan's Palace, somewhere in the Ottoman Empire.
But his Così fan tutte ought to take
place in the West--possibly even Imperial Vienna--to
make the point about the exotic nature of the two Young
Turks, or Albanians, who come to woo the Inconstant
Fiancées of two young Officers, now in Disguise.
For some kinky reason, Stage Director Dona D.
Vaughn decided to move the action to a Moorish Milieu,
costuming the background Peasants like fugitives from a
Christmas Pageant in Dubai.
Nonetheless, the Visual Effect was charming,
even to discovering Don Alfonso [Gideon Dabi] steaming
away in a Turkish Bath. Which later became a Planter.
There were also two spavined Palm Trees that
got moved about so much they should have been on Rollers.
But the young Manhanttan School of Music Cast was
brilliant!
Rebecca Krynski's Fiordiligi ought
to be soon on her way to the Met.
Her sister, Dorabella, was also outstanding,
often cleverly comical, as sung & played by Kaitlyn Costello
Fain.
Trim & handsome Nickoli Strommer was
in splendid voice as Guglielmo, as was his bother officer,
Ferrando, sung by Brett Sprague, who, unfortunately,
looks like a Botero in Uniform.
Best of all was Andrea Carroll as the Maid
of Many Disguises, Despina.
Right now, she is every bit as good as the Great
Despinas of the Past!
Still, every time I see Così, I'm
reminded of what Jean Pierre Ponnelle once told me when
he was rehearsing a delightful Così for the Salzburg
Festival:
What is it with Don Alfonso?
Why is he always hanging around the Young Officers'
Barracks? Why is he so eager to prove to his two young
friends that 'Women are fickle'?
Ponnelle thought: He should Get Married &
Have a Life…
With Publishers Dying, Krapp Today Wouldn't
Get Any Copies into Print, Would He?
John Hurt is brilliant as Sam Beckett's
Krapp, brought to BAM from Dublin's Gate Theatre.
As he listens to a Tape from thirty years
ago--Krapp makes a retrospective recording every year on his Birthday--it's
clear he believes he was right to give up Love,
or at least Sex, for writing His Magnum Opus.
Seventeen copies sold, of which 11 at trade price
to free circulating libraries beyond the seas. Getting known.
One pound six and something, eight, I have little doubt…
This struck Home!
Your Roving Arts Reporter has made many, many Tapes,
most with the Great & Famous in the Arts.
Yet, in this Year of Our Lord, 2011,
I made the Grand Total Sum of $21.76 in Royalties.
But for a book I wrote forty years ago…
That is really Krappy!
Ay, Federico! Wearing Lorca's Bowtie Not
the Same Thing as Being That Doomed Poet!
The young Federico García Lorca once
came to New York to study at Columbia University &
write Poetry.
He was, apparently, fond of Red Bowties,
as well as the Poetry of Walt Whitman & Hart Crane.
Always a Bad Sign for Parents, hoping for
Grandchildren…
Who now reads Hart Crane's The Bridge? Who
now even remembers Hart Crane, who liked to service Servicemen
in Bus Station Men's Rooms?
But García Lorca is certainly not forgotten.
His Poetic Dramas are still Potent & often revived:
La Casa de Bernarda Alba, Noces de Sang…
Lorca's Manhattan Inspired Poet in New York
is not, however, often mentioned anymore.
Nonetheless, it has inspired a group of young Spanish
Artists living & working in New York to try to tie on
Lorca's Bowtie.
Funded by the Spanish Embassy in DC &
the Spanish Consulate in NYC, these talented Poets &
Performers have joined with an American Team to create
an avant garde work that invokes Lorca, while complaining
of their own Problems in working & surviving in New
York.
They are obviously not fans of the Bankstas
& the Politicos, in thrall to the Lobbyists.
Two tall Scaffold Towers were rolled about
the Duke's Arena, to facilitate various Bowtie tie ons.
Most impressive was a Cirque du Soleil fall
from above, on a long red cloth: Bowtie Material?
Unfortunately, much of the Texts Lost a Lot in
Translation. Frankly, I had difficulty in Understanding,
not only the Words, but also Their Implications…
Now, looking at the Script, I can see what
was possibly intended.
If some of these Young Artists are hoping for careers
in the Spoken Theatre, work on Diction/Articulation
& Breathing/Projection is indicated.
My Guest at a performance of Wearing Lorca's
Bowtie was Peter Harvey, the distinguished Designer/Painter,
who recently reprised his original designs for George Balanchine's
Jewels at La Scala/Milan.
He has also painted a powerful Tribute to
this Murdered Poet--brutally killed by Franco's Assassins--which
now has Pride of Place in my Living Room…
Harvey was as baffled as I: Ay, Federico! Ay
de mi! Ay que mala suerte…
Ana Tzsarev Strikes Again! Russian Fairytales
Instead of a Russian Christmas…
Last Christmas Season, the bold artist Ana Tzarev
mounted a wonderful exhibition of Decorations, Ornaments,
& Scenes celebrating the Russian Version of
the Holiday, complete with Father Frost, whom even the
Communists could no erase from Slavic Consciousness.
Now, at her impressive gallery on West 57th
Street, she has flooded the space with large scale, bursting with
color paintings of Russian Fairytales.
In the Tradition of Kandinsky & Bilibin--but
far beyond Kandinsky--Ana Tzarev has brought "her signature style
of vibrant color & bold texture to these beloved stories."
Among these Legends are those of The Firebird,
The Magic Pike, The Scarlet Flower, The Frog Princess,
& Baba Yaga.
These surprising Visions will be on view until 11
February…
At the Grolier: See Type Faces & Type Punches
from the Imprimerie Nationale!
For anyone still interested in the Arts &
Crafts of Printing, the amazing exhibition of Type Faces,
Type Punches, Engraved Plates, & Rare Books
from France's Imprimerie Nationale, now at the Grolier
Society, should visit before 4 February!
Not only are magnificent French Alphabets
on view, but also Type Punches for Languages that No Longer
Are Spoken. As well as for some Exotic Languages that
do survive--some of which had been used in former French Colonies…
Did Pharaonic Egyptians ever really speak
Hieroglyphics?
Of course not, but they had to have some kind of
Glyphs to carve on their Monuments & to explain
who was inside that Mummy Case, when Howard Carter
& Lord Carnarvon dug up King Tut's Tomb!
As a productive result of Napoleon's March
Through Egypt & his Order that its Antiquities
should be described & depicted in Print & Engraved Prints,
wonderful Hieroglyphic Type Faces were designed by the
Imperial Imprimerie.
François the First founded the Royal
Printers in 1538, but it was Cardinal Richelieu, in
1640, who created the Imprimerie, developed over
the Generations, through Kings, Emperors, &
even democratically elected Presidents.
These remarkable Types, Prints, & Books have
never before been on display outside France. Do Not Miss Them!
Burning Passions… Director Scott Elliott Shows
How It's Done--But No Toe Sucking!
Actors are--by Nature & by Profession--Exhibitionists.
If you do not want Strangers to see you Naked--Emotionally,
Metaphorically, or Actually--you would be well advised
to choose Librarianship as your Life's Work…
But, down on Theatre Row, at the Acorn Theatre,
an interesting Ensemble is stripping down to the Buff
& giving their All for their Art.
Thomas Bradshaw's multi plotted play
is almost too complicated to describe or explain.
But, if you've always wondered what it is that Homosexuals
do--in or out of bed--This Is Your Play!
It was something of a surprise to see Sutton
Foster's brother, Hunter, impersonating the Older
Version of an Orphaned Boy who began Hustling at
14.
The Things Actors are asked to do… But working
is better than staying home on Food Stamps.
Scott Elliott staged Burning for The
New Group.
More Stagings like this one, though, & you won't
need Streaming Porn!
Don't Eat Those Meat Pies! Be Careful When Dining
with Titus Andronicus!
If you live in New York City--or in nearby New Jersey
or New England--do plan on an evening down at Joe Papp's Public
Theatre on Astor Place.
Not only are the Productions often Provocative--as
well as Professional--but the Public Lab Series
also offers its tickets at the Bargain Basement Price of
only $15!
After its effortful mounting of King Lear,
it has surpassed itself with an astonishing staging of Titus
Andronicus.
Not only is this a difficult, complicated drama,
but it also requires its terrifying Anti Heroine Queen Tamora
of the Goths to eat her own Children, baked into
a Meat Pie!
The Play Text also has a few ambiguous Stage
Directions. One of my favorites is: Enter Lavinia Ravished.
If you are playing Lavinia, just how
should you act that?
Would it help if Shakespeare or Marlowe
had uses a couple of Commas?
As thusly: Enter, Lavinia, Ravished.
Then, there's this challenging stage direction:
Enter Lavinia in a Bed…
It should be noted that Whoever actually
wrote Titus & all the other plays commonly credited
to The Bard did not specify these actions. They were additions
made from Globe Theatre performance practice.
[No Original Manuscripts in Shakespeare's
Hand have ever been found. We have only Six Signatures
in his Handwriting & he didn't spell his name the same
way every time…]
Titus, powerfully played by Jay O. Sanders,
has defeated the vicious Goths, who sought to Sack
Rome. [Eventually, they did just that, but that's another
play… Then there were those Visi Goths, as well.]
The Victorious Claimant to the Imperial
Throne, Saturninus [Jacob Fishel], denigrates
the Patriotic Titus & His Clan. He also makes the Grave
Mistake of marrying the Queen of the Defeated Goths
[Stephanie Roth Haberle], who is bent on Revenge!
Like Coriolanus--who victoriously defended
Rome from its Enemies, only to be scorned &
join the defeated Corioli to march against his Homeland--so,
also, does Titus enlist the Goths against Rome.
Well, keeping things running in the Mid Italian
Peninsula was Never Easy…
Seldom, in recent Shakespeare Stagings, have the
Bard's Lines been so clearly & Understandably
Articulated as in this unusual production.
The direction of Michael Sexton is surely
to be credited for that! Christopher Marlowe would have
been proud of him & the Cast!
But there was a Problem.
Instead of letting the play speak for itself,
on an essentially Bare Stage, the set designer, Brett
J. Banakis apparently found a Dyke's Lumber Yard Plywood
Special…
Center stage was a pile of Five Ply Panels
that kept being enlisted & unloaded on the forestage to outline
& define the Onward Thrust of the Drama.
Initially, this was cute & clever, but eventually
the entire stage area was engulfed in Plywood Panels, featuring
various Texts, Graphics, & Drawings…
There were also actual Guns & Knives
strewn about, which often made it difficult for the actors to
move around the area.
PubLab: Please let Shakespeare--or Marlowe--Speak
Aloud for Himself!
Maple & Vine: What Is It About Married
Guys With Gay Issues?
Here's what Your Arts Reporter wrote about Jordan
Harrison's Retro Paradise drama when it premiered
last Spring at the Humana Festival in Louisville, at Actors
Theatre:
It's Always 1955 at Maple & Vine:
Who Says You Can't Step in the Same River Twice?
What is it about Berkeley?
Here's Maple & Vine, by Jordan Harrison,
commissioned by Berkeley Rep & Actors Theatre
of Louisville!
Imagine a New Cult in which everyone lives
a Happy Life, just like June Allyson & Dick
Powell. It's Always 1955 at Maple & Vine--with
Suits, Fedoras, Dresses, & Hairstyles to match.
Couples with Troubled Marriages can find
a Safe Harbor among these Good Folks!
It's like Scientology, only with Covered
Dish Casseroles…
But there's a Serpent lurking in this Technicolor
Eden.
Its Straight Arrow, Arrow Collar Man Founder,
a Model Husband & Provider, has a Forbidden Love
Interest on the side: Another Man!
The Audience even gets to see them, Pants Down,
engaged in what Christian Fundamentalists would call an
Abomination!
What would Jesus Do?
Wasn't there a Disciple that "Jesus Loved"?
You certainly do not hear of anything like this
happening with Scientologists, do you?
Mormons, maybe…
But it's probably a Smutty Sin to even imagine
Tom Cruise & John Travolta embracing at Maple
& Vine!
Anne Kauffman staged an admirable & energetic
cast.
That Was Last Spring: Now, at Playwrights Horizons,
Too Much Scene Shifting…
Recently shown on 42nd Street, this was
essentially the same plot--with some Jordanian or Harrisonian
Improvements--but it was almost eclipsed in the never ending
drama of Scene Shifting.
Set Designer Alexander Dodge had devised
what appeared to be a set of stainless steel framed wagon stages,
encapsuling various home areas & other sites.
For Decent God Fearing Christians, it is
still shocking to see two men--one of them supposedly Heterosexually
Happily Married--making the Beast with Two Backs!
Still, Marin Ireland, Jeanine Serralles, Trent
Dawson, Peter Kim, & Pedro Pascal were excellent.
Even if they had to dodge the ever moving, permutating Settings…
Glazing the Frick's Portico: High Time, Too--Now,
See Secret Garden & Meissen China…
Your Roving Arts Reporter used to tell folks that
he "lived in back of the Frick."
Actually, as Inge Riest, a major Frick
Librarian, admonished me recently, I live across from
the Frick!
It occupies an Entire Block Front on Fifth
Avenue, bounded by East 70th & East 71st
Streets.
It was once the site of the Lenox Library--effectually
on Lenox Hill--but this was torn down by Henry Clay
Frick to house his Art Collection & possibly to
give Art Collector JP Morgan a run for his money, if not
for his Museum…
[The surviving materials of the Lenox Library were
later incorporated into the Stephen J. Schwarzman Memorial
Library on Fifth Avenue @ 42nd Street.]
The current Big News at the Frick is the
formal opening of the now glass enclosed Portico,
which runs along the inside wall of the 71st Street
Long Gallery, looking out onto a kind of Secret Garden--Not
Open to the Public--although you can look through the Fifth
Avenue Iron Barred Ornamental Fence for a Glimpse…
[There is also a much larger, more handsome Secret
Garden on the other side of the Frick Complex, on East
70th Street, where two noble Town Houses were
torn down to make this Inaccessibile To The Public
Garden possible.
[When the Main Entrance was undergoing Repairs,
we were, however, able to enter through that Magical Garden. Ordinarily,
it would seem, only Patrons & Donors, on Gala Evenings,
gain access…]
Now, great Glass Sheets have been securely
installed between the Greek Columns of the Portico, making
it a narrow but attractive Gallery for Sculpture
& smaller scale Objects d'art, shown in wall mounted
glass cases.
The Project Architect was Davis Brody
Bond, which is, actually, more than One Person.
It is lit at night, so you can, from the street,
admire Houdon's noble statue of Diana the Huntress,
which now stands at the Avenue End of the Gallery.
But the current Major Exhibition is of the Arnhold
Collection of Meissen Porcelain.
The Arnholds began collecting in Dresden--primarily
table wares, vases, & objects with Royal Provenance--between
1926 & 1935, by which time Adolf Hitler had come to
Power & it was high time for those who could get out
with some of their valuables to leave Germany…
Your Roving Arts Reporter first saw this Collection
at the MH DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, during the War
Years, so it's good to see some of it again on display.
But these are all small scale gems of Dresden/Meissen
China.
Not like the Monumental Porcelains on view
in Dresden's State Galleries. Many of which Your Art Reporter
photographed this past Summer for INFOTOGRAPHY™.
But do not bring Your Camera or Cell Phone
Lens to the Frick: Photography is Strictly Forbidden!
Asian Revelations: The Very Fine Lines of Sarah
Sze, Plus Rocks on the Marquée!
As for Sarah Sze's current Arts
Installations on the Second Floor of the Asia Society,
please Watch Your Feet & do not Sneeze, as you may
destroy the Compositions of Coins, Bottle Caps,
& other Detritus that she has so painstakingly assembled
on the floor & walls.
There are also some large Rocks outside the
window, sitting on the Entrance Marquée.
Chinese seem to love Large Rocks, especially
Misshapen & Weathered Stones, as seen recently in the
Rotunda of the Guggenheim.
But Sarah Sze is American born, in 1969…
What she is, aside from those pitiful Installations,
is a Genius of Line & Design.
In the smaller gallery, where some large & small
scale drawing/painting compositions are on view, her fantastic
& complicated interweavings of segments of Staircases
& other industry inflected images are Absolute Fascination!
MoMA: Sanja Ivekovic's Sweet Violence
Fascinates with Women's Portraits & Women's Issues…
Yes, Virginia, There Is a "Santa Claus."
But Good St. Nick was from Smyrna
& he helped Doweryless Virgins. He Did Not Abuse
Women!
Not like those Nasty Guys from Croatia
& other parts of the Post 1989 Disintegrated Yugoslavia…
In Sweet Violence, the Croatian Artist Sanja
Ivekovic has photo documented Handsome Women
who have fled Male Abuse.
She also makes Videos!
But the Centerpiece of her current show at
MoMA is Lady Rosa of Luxembourg.
This is a tall golden shaft, topped with a Golden
Image of Anarchist Rosa Luxembourg, who should
never be confused with that Anarchist Fiend Emma
Goldman whom J. Edgar Hoover desperately desired to
deport from America's Shores.
No, indeed! Rosa was a Threat to Order In
Weimar Germany, so she & her Comrade, Karl
Liebknecht, had to be Terminated. [This was done by
the Fehm, a Pre Nazi Fascist Killer Squad.]
Standing Tall in the MoMA Atrium, this shaft
looks very much like the Soviet Memorials to Heroic
Workers that once dominated the Principal Plazas &
Squares of most Warsaw Pact Cities & Towns.
Around the walls are newspaper accounts of the various
exhibitions of this Monumental Artwork. One Headline
asks: Is This Is Art?
Only God will be able to answer that &
only at The Last Judgment…
Brooklyn Museum at Bonham's: Fine Arts Librarians
Sample Wine & Cheese, Plus Auction Items.
Your Roving Arts Reporter was pleasantly surprised
to find himself invited to a Librarians' Get Together at
Bonham's Auction Galleries in the IBM Bldg.
The display of 20th Century Decorative
Arts was closed, but, as I had long ago been founder editor
creator of The Art Deco News, I was allowed to wander around
these fine Suites of Furniture & Objects.
The assorted Librarians, however, were wining &
cheesing among Fine Books & Manuscripts, auctioned
on 15 December.
On show were Autographs of Famous Folks,
among some interesting original Artworks. How about a Signature
of King George III?
Thomas Jefferson?
FDR? JFK? LBJ?
Actually, I already have King George's Autograph,
along with other Royals…
I do not have a Jeffersonian Signature, alas,
but I do have Personal Inscriptions on or below photographs
from Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard
Nixon, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, & Lyndon Baines
Johnson.
Truman wrote me an accompanying letter, hoping
the photo wouldn't bring me "any bad luck." Later, when I was
in Independence to visit his Presidential Library,
I found him mowing his lawn!
I had repeatedly asked President Nixon for
an Interview: I wanted to find out what his & Pat
Nixon's favorite Works of Art, Fiction, &
Movies were…
Each Request was answered with the response
that the President wanted to do the Interview, but was
Too Busy with Statecraft--or something like that--at
the Moment.
Finally, Nixon--or some Staff Member--sent me his
Photo, personally inscribed to me. In lieu
of the Intervieu…
I knew that Jack Kennedy had a Robot Signing
Machine, with some ten or fifteen Template Versions
of his Signature.
But his Photo arrived with a letter from his Personal
Secretary, Evelyn Lincoln. It assured me that he
really did sign my photo. Not the Machine!
I wonder about that. But I did reflect that
Abraham Lincoln's Secretary was a Kennedy;
oddly a mirror image of Kennedy's Lincoln…
My very large Portrait of Lyndon Johnson
also had an accompanying letter. This, however, was from Juanita
Roberts, who assured me that this Left Profile was
LBJ's best side…
Juanita Roberts was my Aunt Katherine Loney's
Best Friend in Johnson City, Texas.
I was given the Photo because I'd written a report
for LIFE Magazine about Miss Kate's having been Lyndon's
First Schoolteacher!
[She once cautioned me: Don't you ever tell Lyndon
I never voted for him!]
The Librarians talked of Books & Digitals,
even as Printed Books began to slither from their shelves.
My good friend, Dierdre Lawrence, Librarian
of the Brooklyn Museum, had invited me. But friends from
the Frick & the NYPL were also on hand.
No one from the Morgan Library was there.
I was told that the Morgan is a Law Unto Itself…
Over the years, I have given books to the Morgan,
to the Public Library, to the Frick, the Brooklyn Museum, &
other New York based Libraries.
Not to overlook the Bancroft Library at UC/Berkley,
where Loney Family Items are on file.
My Grandfather, Thomas Loney, born in Ireland
1832, came to Gold Rush California in 1850,
so the Loneys were Real Pioneers.
Incidentally, the Glenn Loney Papers in the
UC/Davis Library now total 160 Running Feet. I write
a lot…
My Friends have created a Glenn Loney Charitable
Trust. I was 83 on Christmas Eve, so something
had to be done about all the books & artworks not already
given away.
The Bancroft & UC/Davis are on my Futures
List, as well as Brooklyn, the Frick, & the Morgan.
Once upon a time, I was going to give my entire
INFOTOGRAPHY™ Archive to the NYPL--it's now some
Million.5 Images--but was, fortunately, Turned Down.
Now that they are going to Gut the Stacks
in the Stephen Schwarzman Bldg & are closing Major
Divisions, this was a Blessing in Disguise.
The Glenn Loney Charitable Trust will take
charge of all those Images, photographed all over the World. Beginning
in 1944, with a Brownie Box Camera, but moving on to a
Kodak Retina 3C & onward to Leicas, Canons,
Olympuses, & Nikons…
At the Bonham's Reception, I was again able to chat
with Inge Riest, to whom I had given, for the Frick, some
East German Artbooks, published by Subscription
& not available in the West.
I also have a large trove of Nazi Era Art Magazines
& Haus der Deutschen Kunst Exhibition Catalogues.
I plan to Scan these for On Line Use & possibly
donate the actual materials to the Frick afterward.
Inge Reist is now Director of the Frick's
Center for the History of Collecting in America.
We already know how Morgan & Frick
built their Collections. But what about the DuPonts?
Although I have collected some remarkable artworks
over time, they are by artists, like the late Matthew Matthias
Prechtl, who are almost Totally Unknown in America.
I asked Inge, quite some time ago, if she'd be interested
in How I Built My Collection, but I've had No Response
thus far.
Oh well. The Glenn Loney Charitable Trust will have
to Make Decisions when I'm gone…
On a Clear Day, You Can See As Far as Eighth
Avenue!
OK! I didn't much like Burton Lane &
Alan Jay Lerner's On a Clear Day You Can See
Forever when it first peered out into the Mists of
Broadway.
Having been Beheaded in the French Revolution,
I have nothing, in principle, against the Idea of Reincarnation.
But the Idea of Falling in Love with the
Previous Incarnation of a Woman now inside Another Woman's
Body really didn't rivet me to my seat. Nor did the
Intended Hit Songs…
Now, Peter Parnell has had the Idea to put
That Woman inside the 30 year old Body of a Boy/Man
Florist!
This seems to have become the Season of The
Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name.
But what a shock for the Matinée
Ladies who just Love Harry Connick, Jr!
All around me, they were clucking aloud with Misgivings:
Is Harry going to kiss that Gay Guy?
They were lucky this show wasn't The Pajama Game,
in which Harry Jr took off his pajama top to reveal Terrific
Abs & Pecs, the latter almost like Manly Tits…
Had that been a Connick Costume Option, Florist
David [David Turner] could easily have got an Erection
right on stage!
Actually, even without an Erection, he's a Pleasing
Player & sings & dances just fine!
Connick Jr, on the other hand, seems to be giving
a Guided Tour of his Role.
Unfortunately for him, that's built in, as
he's shown to be a Psychiatrist [Dr. Mark Bruckner],
lecturing about his experiences with a Judy Garland look
alike, sound alike, trapped inside David's slim figure.
I fell in love with Sarah Stiles the instant
I saw her: That Has To Be Judy!
She's the Best Spirit in the whole show,
which was staged by Michael Mayer.
You could easily see that the Florist for
whom David worked was a Homo, as he had all the
Typical Homosexual Swishy Mannerisms that Decent
Right Thinking God Fearing Americans have been trained to
hate.
The Chorus Boys tried to Act Natural,
but the bright costume colors they sported suggested Otherwise.
The Most Off Putting Element of this production
was the Multifluity of Escheresque Opticals: Bold
Checkerboard Patterns, Revolving Concentric Circles…
It was as if Set Designer Christine Jones--like
Hypnotist Bruckner/Connick Jr--was trying to Hypnotize
the Audience into believing in both the Premise
& the on stage Illusion of A Clear Day.
STREB Is Dangerous, Not Home Grown
Cirque du Soleil!
Bloomberg was the Lead Sponsor of Elizabeth
Streb's hugely scaled Armory Show, titled modestly
as STREB: KISS THE AIR!
If any of this funding came out of Mayor
Bloomberg's Personal Pocket, he should demand it
back so he can make the Muni Buses run on time. Or, indeed,
run at all…
On what must have been the Opening Evening,
VIPs were assigned seats, while Carping Critics
had to find their own turf.
Down front, what seemed to be a kind of girlie Punk
Rocker was busy kissing & hugging various VIPs, so I assumed
she must be the Eponymous Streb of the Title.
The entire length of the Park Ave Armory's Drill
Hall was pressed into service for this Equipment Heavy
show.
But, high above the shiny steel scaffoldings &
grayish crash mats, there were three huge TV Screens on
each side, featuring STREB in Huge Letters. There
are also Videos of her performers exercising & doing
Other Stuff…
But, mostly, it's all about STREB…
This is no Cirque du Soleil, but it seems
to have more High Tech Equipment than even on view at Radio
City Music Hall last summer with Zarkana.
Nor are Streb's energetic Performers as gifted or
skilled as those of the Quebecoise inflected--or Infected--Cirque
Artistes.
Generally, they slide down long Aerial Lines
to Crash Into Hanging Mattings.
Or they are catapulted onto Crash Mats.
Or they flop down from Great Heights
onto more Crash Mats…
Or they flop about in Shallow Waters,
drenching those in the Front Rows. Fortunately,
not including Mayor Bloomberg or other Sponsors!
What most worried me about this Show were
the Potential Dangers, both to Brains & to Spines--of
all this aimless Falling & Crashing.
Described as Action Events, the Program included
Popaction, Falling Sideways, Instant Flight, Ascension, Human
Fountain, Drop, Catch, Wave, & Kiss the Water!
How about Kiss My Ass…
Juilliard at Alice Tully, with Mozartian Jupiter
& Prokofievian Romeo & Juliet.
Yes! There is Quite a Contrast between Mozart
& Prokofiev, especially between the Jupiter Symphony
& Suites from Romeo & Juliet.
Nonetheless, the Juilliard Orchestra of black
clad student musicians were splendid in both. This is no small
credit to their Mentor/Teachers & to their dynamic
Conductor, Larry Rachleff!
But, with Symphony Orchestras across the
Nation in trouble or dying, where will all these gifted
young Musicians find work?
Would President Elect Mitt Romney
find Chairs for them in the Utah Symphony?
Do you have to be a Latter Day Saint to sing
in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?
Cirque Shanghai Baixi at the New Vic: Elizabeth
Streb Should See How It's Done…
Cheers & a Ni How Ma to Miao Miao
Chen, director/choreographer for Cirque Shanghai Baixi,
a month long Holiday Treat at the New Victory Theatre!
These extremely talented & thoroughly trained
Circus Performers are as good as Cirque du Soleil
troupes, which also draw on many Chinese Acrobats, Jugglers,
& Tumblers.
What they also provide is a Panoply of Chinese
Costumes & Traditions: The almost Lost Art of Flag
Waving, among others…
Critic John Simon has complained of Cirque
du Soleil that they don't use Animals.
Well, Cirque Shanghai Baixi does--at least
symbolically--when the Dragons of Chinese New Year strut
their stuff!
Elizabeth Taylor's Fabulous Jewels Change Hands,
Plus Burton Taylor Wedding Dresses!
So, OK! Elizabeth Taylor is still Big
News!
The recent Auction Sales at Christie's Broke
International Records!
These included The Most Valuable Sale of Jewelry
in Auction History.
Also: The Most Valuable Private Collection of
Fashion ever sold at Auction.
No less than 26 Items sold for over $1
Million!
Six Items sold for over $5 Million!
Christie's first On Line Auction of Taylor
Memorabilia fetched some $9.5 Million!
Every single Item in the catalogues sold,
including her old Louis Vuitton Luggage…
To see the Taylor Treasures, you had to buy
a Ticket & enter only upon your Appointed Hour & Minute,
not lingering, as there were Scores of People waiting
outside!
Total Sales brought some $156,756,576, to
benefit the Elizabeth Taylor Trust, with a special interest
in helping AIDS Research & AIDS Victims.
The rare 16th Century La Peregrina
Pearl--suspended from a Cartier designed Necklace--brought
$11,842,500, a Record for Pearls bought at
Auction!
This history rich Pearl once belonged to King
Philip II of Spain.
In 1969, Richard Burton bought this Pearl
at Auction for only $37,000…
In 1968, Burton bought a Ruby & Diamond Ring--from
Van Cleef & Arpels--for Taylor's Xmas Present.
The Ring sold for $4,226,500, but largely for the Ruby,
not for the diamonds.
Taylor's Previous Husband, the Late Mike Todd,
also showered Taylor with rich gifts, including the so called
Mike Todd Tiara, sold for $4,226,500!
The Taj Mahal Diamond realized nearly $9
Million. It was long long ago a gift from a great Mughal
Emperor to his son, Shah Jahan, who built the Taj
as a Tomb for his beloved wife…
Elizabeth Taylor's Gina Fratini Wedding Dress
for her Second Marriage to Richard Burton brought only
$62,500.
But why go on…
You can find these & all the other Sale Details
on Christie's Web Site!
Doughy Political Bread & Puppet Theatre at
New City: Peter Schumann Strikes Again!
In the midst of the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival
down at Theatre for the New City--wonderfully fantastic Puppets
on display in the Foyers!--Peter Schumann's Bread
& Puppet Theatre arrived for its Annual Holiday Showcase.
There was a fun family program: Man=Carrot Circus.
This was based on the "Revelation that Upright
Man was created in the Image of the Upright Carrot,
Rooted in Dirt."
All very well, but eating Carrots
will help your Vision, possibly even your Voice 4 Vision…
But eating Upright or Uptight Men--even
those down & dirty--will not make you 20/20. It could
land you in Jail!
Carrot Eaters do not go to Riker's Island.
Unless, of course, they stole the Carrots!
As for the More Serious, "Darker" Evening Show,
Schumann's take on the Attica Riots & Their
Tragic Aftermath left some spectators unhappy with the
enactment, although the Puppets were, as usual, inventive.
Nonetheless, Attica, or the Revenge of the Law
was presented "as performed 40 years ago in our Coney Island
Theatre, in direct response to the Mass Killings by
the National Guard."
It was interesting, once again, to see Gov. Nelson
Rockefeller portrayed as a Puppet!
As for the second section, Man of Flesh &
Cardboard, watching it could be added to the Torments
visited every minute of every hour on Wiki Leaks Whistle
Blower Bradley Manning.
This was described in the tiny Schumannesque
Program as: "A Cardboard Opera about the Courageous Soldier Bradley
Manning who sits in a Brig about to be tried for War Crimes because
he brought War Crimes to the Light of Day."
While it is certain that Manning will not
receive a Fair Trial under the Uniform Code of Military
Justice, nonetheless, some of the Top Secret Info that
he leaked has put some People's Lives in Very Real
Danger.
Some--who have helped the Warlike US in Iraq
& Afghanistan--have surely already been Terminated…
Watching Peter Schumannn's concentrated Centrality
to both these Agit Prop Puppet Plays made me think not
of the Agit Prop of Bertolt Brecht--a possible Forerunner--but
of how much these shows have become About Peter Schumann…
Then there's the Ritual Sharing of Bread
& Puppet Bread afterward…
The Best Part is the Foyer Shop, where you
can buy those colorful Bread & Puppet Lino Block Prints.
I still have Bread & one with a Yellow
Teapot on a Black Table, against a Red Ground
in my kitchen, bought years & years ago.
St. Joan's Horse Goes To Heaven is on the door
facing this Screen & Keyboard, even as I write!
On the nearby Closet Door, there are some Black
Babushkas raking in a Blue Field, among Four Pointed
Golden Stars…
From Donatello to Bellini & Onward to American
Indians, Ending with Duncan Phyfe at the Met!
Time was when Press Previews at the Met Museum
provided a sit down Catered Brunch.
That's Long Gone. The Individual Omelets
vanished way back in the 1960s…
It used to be said--mainly by Yours Truly--that:
A Hungry Press Is an Angry Press.
Well, Presses & Newspapers are on their
way out, so Get a Life!
Now, instead of One Show per Press Preview,
there may be two, three, four, or even five at the Met.
Not all of them Major, of course…
There were Three recently, but I also got
to see the Lisbon Hebrew Bible I'd missed the last time
we had Multi Previews.
The recently acquired Coe Collection of American
Indian Art was on display in that large chamber devoted to
Native Arts from African Tribes, Aztecs,
Mayans, & Amer Indians, among other Ethnic
Cultures.
Some nice Bead & Quill Work!
After which, these Artifacts can be stored
away, under appropriate Cataloguing Rubrics, for Scholarly
Study…
Far, far away, off in the American Wing,
some of Duncan Phyfe's finest Chairs, Tables, Consoles,
& Bookcases for Manhattan Gentry were in the Spotlight,
although some are usually always on view.
I looked in vain for a Phyfe Drum Table…
As for the extensive, even exhausting, Parade
of Renaissance Portraits--From Donatello to Bellini--it's
amazing how many of these were rendered in Profile, not
full frontal.
For those Venetian, Estense, Milanese, &
Florentine Nobles with hooked noses or other distinctive
Facial Conformations, this was not always a Flattering
Record for Posterity.
Nonetheless, one has to believe that Donatello
& those in between him & Bellini really depicted
the Face that was paying the Commission as they
saw it before them.
Centuries later, no one would pay for Warts on
His Nose…
Studying so many Portraits & Sketches
can induce the Sensation of Superfluity. I even had the
notion that I'd photographed many of these Portraits before on
the Met's hallowed walls.
Some, yes.
But there are Many Loans from Major European
Museums. Some of those, however, I had already long ago photographed
in situ in their Home Museums.
This is not a case of Seen One Renaissance
Italian Portrait, You've Seen Them All. But there are some
Stylistic Similarities…
The Coe Artifacts will be on view until 28
May, with Phyfe's Furniture in the foreground until 6 May
2012.
Some Doges & Princes have to return soon
to Europe--even if the Euro collapses--so this Exhibition
must end on 18 March 2012!
Chop Down The Cherry Orchard! The Cherries
Were Sour, Anyway…
Four Decades ago, when Your Arts Reporter was teaching
at what was then Hofstra College--Francis
Ford Coppola was our Star Senior!--several of my students
referred to Anton Chekhov's bitter comedy of Dying
Life on a Russian Rural Estate as The Cheery Orchid.
No Orchids, please. Also, there's
nothing Cheerful about the End of a Way of Life,
even if the People involved are Fundamentally Stupid.
When Konstantin Stanislavsky premiered such
Chekhovian Masterpieces as The Seagull & Cherry
Orchard at the Moscow Art Theatre, they seemed so tragically
sad in performance that Chekhov protested that they were, in fact,
Comedies!
Now, down at the CSC, on East 13th
Street, Stupidity is almost Celebrated, but the
drama's Terminal Sadness is adroitly tempered with Wry--even
Slapstick--Comedy, thanks both to a generally admirable
Cast & the insightful staging of Andrei Belgrader.
There are a few False Notes, such as the
senseless Audience Interaction with Charlotta Ivanovna
[Roberta Maxwell].
Or the depiction of a Hundred Mishaps Epikhodov
[Michael Urie] as an Overgrown Schoolboy. Why?
Long, long ago, I did the Lighting for our
University Theatre production of Cherry Orchard
at UC/Berkeley, so I once knew the play By Heart.
But, by now, I have seen almost as many stagings
of Cherry Orchard as I have of Hamlet & Midsummer
Night's Dream.
Many of these productions have been both inventive
& admirable, but the current revival is also thoughtful &
challenging.
As the Serf Boy who has become the Bourgeois
Landlord, Lopakhin, the matured John Turturro
is a lynch pin of this sparely designed [by Santo Loquasto]
staging.
Also admirable are the flighty, delusional Ranyevskaya
[Dianne Wiest] & her two rather different daughters,
Anya & Varya [Katherine Waterston &
Juliet Rylance].
The estimable Daniel Davis is the best Gaev
I've ever seen: Extolling Billiards & Bookcases…
It was also encouraging to see the aging Alvin
Epstein eminently embody the aging Family Butler, Fiers.
It's Not Over until You are Underground…
Lysistrata Jones Is a Long Way Off from Aristophanes,
But No Nookie Until Her Team Wins!
Updating the Classics is bound to offend some
Literary Purists, but who will pay $150 to see a
Musical Version of Oedipus Rex that has not
been jazzed up a bit?
Mama Mia, anyone?
Well, OK.
Medea may make a good bet for an Opera,
but do you really want to see Medusa, with her Dancing
Snakes Hairdo, cavorting around a Fake Parthenon at
the Lunt Fontanne?
Then there's Shakespeare.
Not only the Greeks get Updates. How
about The Boys from Syracuse? That was a remake of The
Comedy of Errors--or was that Eros? Arrows?
Oddly enough, the Boys from Syracuse turn
up in the current remake of Aristophanes' Lysistrata,
now wowing crowds at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
We don't actually see them, but we know that
The Spartans--the oddly named Basketball Team of
Athens University--are to play the Boys from Syracuse,
as well as the Boys from Ithaca & Troy Tech!
If this sounds more like the Home Team is
playing all of Upstate New York, well, that does seem to
be the Idea.
We are a long way off from Attica--the one
in Greece, not in Upstate New York--& the Peloponnesus…
The Problem--at least for Lysistrata Jones
[a dynamic Patti Murin]--is that The Spartans always lose.
As a Supercharged Cheerleader, she hates
Losing, as well as Losers.
But the Team really doesn't care about Winning
on the Basketball Court.
It's all about the Girls "Giving It Up" at
the Wild Party after the Game.
So Lys enlists her Co Cheerleaders to drive
the boys wild with desire, but to deny them Access.
Until they win a game…
To learn how to Seduce without a Pay
off, they all go off to the Eros Motel to have a Training
Session with the ample gold clad Madame Hetaira, lavishly
played & sung by Liz Mikel, a Force of Nature.
The ingenious Douglas Carter Beane has devised
this Transformation, with lively Rap Lyrics &
Music by Lewis Flinn. So, Lampito rhymes with Sausalito!
There are Production Values Galore,
thanks to Allen Moyer & his fellow designers…
Your Arts Reporter almost missed this Supercharged
Show because Fellow Critics had so disparaged it.
Initially, I thought their dismissiveness, even
Anger, was Outrage at anyone daring to Update
a Classic.
But now, I think the deliberate, even joyous, Flaunting
of Family Values & Basic Morality must have been
the Source of the Offense.
From what's seen & suggested on stage, Our
Kids are already Giving It Up on a Regular Basis.
Even before Marriage!
But there is a kind of Moral here:
It's not about Nookie all the time.
In between Bouts, there ought to be something
else, like, maybe, Conversation?
For example, the Student Librarian--yes,
they still have Books in the Libe at Athens U!--likes
Poetry!
The Top Jock does, too! He even reads Robert
Frost: The Road Not Taken…
But their impending Relationship--or Marriage--may
be in Trouble, for he also quotes Walt Whitman.
Always a Bad Sign…
At Last We Have Bonnie & Clyde Alive
& Singing: Tough Luck, Warren & Faye…
When this show was first announced, Your Arts Reporter
thought it might be like that Broadway Musical, Kelly--the
Man Who Jumped Off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Walter Kerr's short, short review: Kelly:
A Bad Idea, Gone Wrong…
With Frank Wildhorn as its Titular Composer--remember
The Scarlet Pimpernel & The Civil War?--one
feared the Worst about a Musicalization of the Movie
about Clyde Barrow & his Girl.
Not to Worry!
As one who survived The Great Depression,
all the Visuals in this show--designed by Tobin Ost--were
on target reminders of that Terrible Era, in which
many were driven to desperation, quite aside from being
driven, like Bonnie, by Clyde in his smart Coupé…
With a Country & Western Twang, Bonnie
& Clyde is almost The Grapes of Wrath in West
Texas, set to music!
Laura Osnes & Jeremy Jordan are outstanding
as the Killing Couple. You could just die for one
of Bonnie's Poems!
Congrats to One & All, but especially to Director/Choreographer
Jeff Calhoun!
STARS IN THEIR CROWNS:
This Month's Rational Ratings--
Samuel Brett Williams' DERBY DAY [★★] Czech American Marionettes' GOLEM [★★★] Walsh, Hansard, & Irglova's ONCE [★★★★] Ethan Coen's HAPPY HOUR [★★] Thomas Bradshaw's BURNING [★★] Bill Shakespeare's or Chris Marlowe's or Anonymous' TITUS ANDRONICUS [★★★] Jordan Harrison's MAPLE & VINE [★★★] Peter Parnell's New Book for Lerner & Lane's ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER [★★★] Peter Schumann's ATTICA & MAN OF FLESH & CARDBOARD [★★★] Tony Chekhov's THE CHERRY ORCHARD[★★★★] Douglas Carter Beane & Lew Flinn's LYSISTRATA JONES [★★★] Black, Menchell, & Frank Wildhorn's BONNIE & CLYDE [★★★★]
Caricature of Glenn Loney in header is by Sam Norkin. Copyright © Glenn Loney 20012. No re-publication or broadcast use without proper credit of authorship. Suggested credit line: "Glenn Loney Arts Rambles." Reproduction rights please contact: jslaff@nymuseums.com.
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