Osburnt: Dispatches From a Life Seared by the Arts

  • The Crucible

    The Crucible

    The director Ivo van Hove has turned his eye on THE CRUCIBLE, Arthur Miller’s treatment, in 1953, of the Salem witch trials as analogous to McCarthyism. Van Hove’s version begins, as did his A View from the Bridge, also by Miller, with a black scrim interposed between the audience and the playing area. No –…

  • A View From the Bridge

    A View From the Bridge

    I took an onstage seat for the Young Vic production at the Lyceum in New York. First row, right, center. I stared at a black scrim, an aisle’s width away. Two hours later, there was a drop of red liquid on my shoe. It dissipated harmlessly. I sat breathless. I wasn’t able to go with…

  • Antigone

    Antigone

    ANTIGONE is the most sedate of the productions I have seen directed by Ivo van Hove, but it might be the most deeply thought-provoking. There is little to be gained from it without thought. It hasn’t the sadism of his Hedda Gabler, the pain of his Cries and Whispers, the angst of his Scenes from…

  • The Roman Tragedies

    The Roman Tragedies

    I would say that last night I sat through six hours of Shakespeare’s three historically-based Roman tragedies – in Dutch, but in fact I did what I was invited to do and milled about. I lounged center-stage on a couch for the first scenes of Coriolanus, at one point dodging a flurry of papers tossed…

  • Cries and Whispers

    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…