Criticultura em Portugal

Oslo , a new play by J.T. Rogers, just won the Tony award for best new play of the season (that is, best new on-Broadway play of the season---small off Broadway plays need not apply). It is a large and complex play of 15 characters that tells the little-known story of how some unknown Norwegian diplomats facilitated a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian envoys in 1993, eventually leading to the “Oslo Accords” in which, among other things, Israel recognized the PLO, the PLO legitimized Israel’s right to exist, and Gaza became an official Palestinian state. It’s a fascinating tale centering on the large egos of mid-level diplomats, none famous. The playwright weaves a 2 ½ hour plot of intrigue, suspense, and the battling of prejudices and passions. He does so with great craft and a fine sense of pacing. I was never bored, and even though I knew the eventual outcome, he managed to keep a good sense of tension, mixed with the humor that often emerges from stressed people. Each scene moves...

The tenure of Alan Gilbert as director of the NY Philharmonic Orchestra is ending this month after eight seasons. The son of two NYPO violinists, he followed a typical Manhattan pattern of insider recruitment. However, he was in many ways an unusual choice for this conservative institution: young, interested in contemporary composers and performing in out-of-the-ordinary venues. He brought needed vigor to a fossilizing institution. The main critiques are that he lacked both 1. glamour (sometimes I think this is more about the conductor’s hair than anything else) and 2. dynamic interpretations of the great orchestral standards. I have noticed that on routine concerts, his body language seems reticent, becoming far more engaged on unusual works or big projects. One of the latter was performed this week—a semi-staged performance of Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold . This dynamic performance was one of the best I have seen of any of the Wagner Ring operas. Das Rheingold is often seen ...

Either due to my fascination with the genre, or to the curious proliferation of such works, it seems that I have experienced many artistic views of the apocalypse lately. All this in a time of relative peace and abundance (yes, I remember global warming, but that is an imminent issue and concern, not an imminent danger as faced by residents of Aleppo). The best of such works create a disturbing future (sort of an inverse of the idealism of Star Trek ) that make us reflect on our own times. Most mix in some form of dystopia as well: mankind has not only done himself in, but reverts to brutality and tyranny in or after doing so (think Lord of the Flies ). The best of these works add some glimmer of warmth and positive humanity to temper the despair, e.g. the wonderful father-son relationship in Cormac McCarthy's The Road or the teen ambisexual bonding in Philip Ridley's Mercury Fur .  Arlington , a new play by Irish playwright Enda Walsh, also goes in this direction, but with an ...

The mental preparation prior to seeing a performance of Eugene O’Neill’s five hour marathon trilogy Morning Becomes Electra is similar to what one does prior to Wagner’s Ring of the Niebelung or Parsifal . Considerations of clothing, temperature, hydration, and nutrition are paramount. You must prepare for “down” spots in the performance, where the author gives you time to recuperate from the intense surrounding drama. Most of all, you need to trust that these masters of extended drama will, in the end, use the extended length to achieve an ending apotheosis. Target Margin Theater’s production of Mourning Becomes Electra failed on the last criterion. Despite many innovations and virtuosic elements and generally excellent acting (with one major exception), it in the end failed to trust that O’Neill would deliver. The play is an update of the Oresteia in which a civil war general (Ezra Mannon) returns home to an adulterous wife, a fanatically loyal daughter, and a damaged son. Af...

Hamish Linklater The New Group in midtown Manhattan is known for its sponsorship of new plays. This year these included plays by two well-known actors: Wallace Shawn’s Evening at the Talk House reviewed here, and Hamish Linklater’s The Whirligig , which I saw in early May. Linklater (b. 1976) is most known for costarring roles on TV’s The Newsroom and The New Adventures of Old Christine , and in the Jackie Robinson biopic 42 .  His two prior plays ( The Vandal , The Cheats ) were considered promising if a bit long. The Whirligig was a two hour+, ambitious effort to show the messy, complex, entwining lives around a dying teenager (a whirligig is a spinning top, or state of disorder). While it ultimately did not quite hold together, I admired its ambitious structure and approach to narrative. Even before the play opens we meet the sick teenaged Julie, in a hospital bed slowly revolving on the stage, asleep with IV’s attached to her. We quickly learn she is dying of hepati...