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Einstein on the Beach
Seeing EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH at BAM put me in mind of the designer Edward Gordon Craig, who just over a century ago publicly desired the transformation of actors into übermarionettes, by which means he would have wrestled the idiosyncratic presence of human beings on stage into the service of an overarching artistic vision. The…
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The Three Sisters
There were numerous Russian speakers in the audience for THE THREE SISTERS on Friday night at BAM, and a comment I heard on the way out was that people were laughing in the wrong places because the supertitles were not well synchronized with the dialogue. This comment intersected in my mind with another I had…
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Prima Donna
Pictured is the lobby ceiling at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the new home for the New York City Opera: I post this great full sail of an image on the occasion of having seen and enjoyed PRIMA DONNA, a modern opera by songwriter and folk music scion Rufus Wainwright. As usual, part of the…
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Cries and Whispers
If there is a single work that drew me to European art film as an undergraduate it was Ingmar Bergman’s CRIES AND WHISPERS. With its ticking clocks, raw yet controlled acting, and dark psychology (including an act of self-mutilation the shock value of which has only recently been equaled by von Trier’s Antichrist) it was…
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The Marriage of Maria Braun
I saw the last performance of THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN on Sunday afternoon at BAM, with the memory of the Fassbinder film from many years ago still vivid in my mind. Rainer Werner Fassbinder was one of the great naturalists of the cinema, and Braun was perhaps his most romantic work, lush and polished…
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Gezeiten
GEZEITEN is directed and choreographed by Sasha Waltz, performed in two parts, and much of it in silence. The style of this dance theater piece is at first abstract, then a sort of deconstructed Naturalism that devolves into a post-apocalyptic Absurdism born of the truth that, having survived, it is the nature of human beings…
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Creditors • Uncle Vanya
It comes as no surprise that Alan Rickman, a mordantly arresting screen actor, would have an affinity for Strindberg, and he has directed CREDITORS with terrifying deftness. Less performed than Miss Julie, The Stronger or Dance of Death, less studied than The Father, CREDITORS, like some overlooked stepchild, has always begged the recognition that it…
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Mortal Engine
I saw GLOW, the short original on which Chunky Move’s one-hour MORTAL ENGINE , now playing at BAM, is based, two or three years ago. It was startling in its merger of technology and honed, conditioned, athletic movement. For one who experienced the progenitor, MORTAL ENGINE is less impactful in its technological wizardry – at…