Criticultura em Portugal

Las Tenieblas (The Darkness) Directed by Daniel Castro Zimbrón The Film Society of Lincoln Center is presenting a horror film festival this summer, not what one usually expects at this bastion of esoteric art films. But these are not the typical US slasher movies—each exhibits a strong director’s presence and artful visuals. I saw a very interesting example, The Darkness by Mexican-born director Daniel Castro Zimbrón. The plot, quite confusing and mysterious, centers on a family of a violent, rustic woodsman with his three children living in a cabin in a very spooky foggy forest. He locks them in the basement each night, creating a steady subliminal suspicion of some sort of child abuse, but this incarceration is actually protective, as the cabin is irregularly visited by some sort of unseen earthquake-evoking monster presence, wonderfully evoked by the sounds of the movie. There is much chopping up of hunted animals, creepy puppet manufacture, and nighttime fright sounds. The ...

Sunday I saw one of those hot ticket only-in-New York things, a joint performance of the Paris Opera Ballet, the Moscow Bolshoi, and the New York City Ballet, each performing one act of George Balanchine’s (1904-1983) abstract ballet Jewels , created for the NYCB in 1967. This extravagant collaboration made sense, since each of Jewels’ three acts portrays a balletic style formative both to Balanchine’s career and to ballet generally: French (Emeralds), Rubies (American), and Diamonds (Russian). The ballet is not about jewels, but jewels bedeck the dancers throughout and inform the set décor. There is no plot, and the three parts are often performed separately. Jewels is historically notable for being the first full length (90 minute) plotless ballet. The opening "Emeralds", done here by the Parisians, is a calm, flowing warm up. The dance has a few spins, but no leaping, and matches flowing arms, long tuile gowns and smooth lines to calm, hyper-romantic music of Fauré...

The Soulpepper Theater in Toronto is Canada’s largest repertory house, presenting a diverse mix of musicals, straight plays, and single person performances. This summer they took the financial risk of playing a mini-season in Manhattan, bringing 20 or so players and seven shows. Their actors have diverse talents, for example offering after-theater cabaret shows in the lobby. The managing director Albert Schultz seems to foster a family-like and Canada-centric environment with his troupe, introducing himself (as director) and each player in Of Human Bondage personally after the play was done, emphasizing the Canadian roots of all the actors. Based on the evidence of the performance I saw, the troupe has excellent acting skills and creative production and directing. I am less certain of the choice of repertory as a match for Manhattan. W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) wrote his finest novel in 1915, just before WWI broke out. The arts were then in a turbulent period of modernistic...

I t seems like every new play I see these days deals with either apocalyptic angst or the plight of the “working cla ss”. Fulfillment Center , a new darkly comedic play by Abe Koogler presented by the Manhattan Theater Club, is one of the better examples of the latter theme. Its four characters buffet one another, reflect, whine, and search for meaning within the rigid confines of an 8 x 60 foot raised platform which restrictively channels their interactions to a series of one on one 5-10 minute confrontations, in total comprising a one act 80 minute play. The play deals with the consequences of a move to New Mexico by two New Yorkers, Madelaine (an intense edgy, excellent Eboni Booth) and her boyfriend Alex (a nerdy, neurotic, and sexual Bobby Moreno). The play gets past some predictable “Manhattanites in the wild west” jokes by showing us the angst that led this couple to relocate (a failed job in NYC), their discomfort with themselves and their relationship, and their utter discom...

Millennial values were in vogue at the Friday performance of Handel’s Aci, Galatea, e Polifermo (1708), an early work by the composer composed during his Roman phase. The work resides somewhere between oratorio and opera, with operatic arias and plot, but without full staging. The recreation in Brooklyn was co-produced by countertenor superstar Anthony Roth Costanzo, known for his edgy risk-taking, including a shaved, nude pharoah in Akhenaten , a Philip Glass opera soon to be seen at the Met. This Handel production was intriguingly cosponsored by National Sawdust (a Brooklyn hipster performing venue known for acoustic, alternative, and world music) and the venerable SF Bay Area Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, a long-established classical early music orchestra and chorus. So its roots crossed from traditional classical music into performance trends and gender/power politics of our own day. This hybrid approach was on full display in Friday’s performance. The opera tells th...