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The Select
I have always had mixed feelings about the Hemingway ouvre, but The Sun Also Rises has the special virtue of being perfect. It is one of those novels – Fitzgerald’s Gatsby is another – that uses an anecdote involving a small number of characters to distill the essence of an historical moment. So I was…
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Blackthorn
The myth of the American West, is, in Mateo Gil‘s BLACKTHORN, with an ingenious screenplay by Miguel Barros, still rugged and romanticized in its values, has neither loosened its grip on the imagination nor escaped the fog of nostalgia. One wonders what input Sam Shepard, in the leading role but also a master playwright on…
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The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neill, Vol. 1
The point of this post is not the Kraine Theater, tucked inside a portmanteau building on East 4th Street that also houses a second theater and a bohemian bar. The point is what the New York Neo-Futurists are doing inside, to wit (take a breath for this title): THE COMPLETE & CONDENSED STAGE DIRECTIONS OF…
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Amor y Amargo
Amor y Amargo popped up a few months ago, just steps from Tompkins Square Park, to become one of the more interesting little bars in New York, specializing in homemade vermouth on tap, bitters and other herbal liqueurs, and a few Spanish tapas. I tried the vermouth (perfect, not too sweet), the francophile flight (it…
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Israel Galvan
To see authentic flamenco, a Basque friend once told me, you need to get yourself invited to a gypsy wedding. Indeed, I have never been crazy about theatrical flamenco. Ballet and modern dance versions have rarely worked for me outside the films of Carlos Saura or historical footage of Antonio Gades. So perhaps it is…
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White Box Project
I went through the Black and White Gallery in Williamsburg (manifestly in its white phase) beyond the white curtains into the white and off-white cinderblock courtyard to watch, hear, feel and participate in the WHITE BOX PROJECT by Noémie Lafrance. In the white-walled patio a crowd collected, slowly, of performers and guests, distinguishable only by…
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Mysteries of Lisbon • Eccentricities of a Blonde-haired Girl
MYSTERIES OF LISBON, four hours and an intermission from Raúl Ruiz, is in the best Iberian-Mediterranean tradition of tales within tales within tales (think Don Quijote or The 1001 Nights), each revealing that reality is a little different than was known before. There are beauties to be had here, and moments of wit, and a…
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A Magic Flute
Of the historically significant theatrical productions that I wish somehow to have been in a position to see, Peter Brook’s pared-to-its-essence Carmen is near the top of the list. So I approached the same director’s hyper-condensed, multi-lingual A MAGIC FLUTE, presented by the Lincoln Center Festival, with a certain eagerness. The result is basically a…
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Vandaag
Dutch and Scandinavian are perhaps the two most underrepresented European cuisines in NYC restaurants, and also two of my favorites. So needless to say I have been a few times to Vandaag, a cleanly designed “Northern European” restaurant that has recently arrived in the East Village. The dishes are minimalist but somehow satisfying, equal parts…
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Sleep No More
I was one of those lining up on Memorial Day night to see Punchdrunk’s SLEEP NO MORE in the Chelsea gallery district. The Scottish play as nightmare is an old trope, well founded in the text. So to deconstruct it as a sort of haunted house theme park and fragment its episodes in the manner…