Criticultura em Portugal

For non New Yorkers, the Armory is a large performance space in Manhattan, originally used in the 19th C for storing munitions/weapons, now used as a BIG space for arts productions. For example, when I saw  Macbeth  there a couple years ago, an entire gladitorial arena was set up inside, and you entered through foggy moors. In March I saw Die Materie , a 4 act opera/tone poem/? by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. Unlike some of the new agey-spiritual spectacles, this one did not come off as one bad LSD trip, at least not always. While there were episodes of un-spiritual stasis, it was an overall fascinating thing to see (see picture of 200 sheep on stage, e.g.) The music was sometimes interesting, occasionally too repetitive without enough forward motion. Movement 1 was about man's technology-- lots of rhythm, pounding chords (exactly 144 to start), Bachian math ratios, symbolic portrayal of the founding of Holland via shipbuilding, zeppelins overhead. Movement ...

The Red Speedo, a play about performance enhancing drugs and the pressures of the high performance athlete, is most striking before a single word is spoken. I was seated in row 2, 3 feet behind a long 1.5 m tall, 1m deep translucent "fishtank" that extended the width of the stage. Actor Alex Breaux enters clad only in a red Speedo, dives into the chlorinated tank, and does a few laps with flip turns before toweling off. This Speedo will be his only attire for the rest of the play. A memorable opening! As for the talking, there are few characters, and few new insights if you read the papers about PEDs in sports. The athlete is manipulated for profit and fame, and appears cluelessly focused on his times, like most high level competitors for whom times/winning are the sole metrics of success. Playwright Lucas Hnath does a good job of moving things along and not preaching, thankfully. I did appreciate the complexity built into the story as the swimmer himself manipulates and ...

Immersive theater, in which attendees wander around a space and have individualized experiences with actors, is all the rage. I attended a well-reviewed example of this on a chilly night in Brooklyn. Then She Fell was created by the Third Rail Project based on writings of Lewis Carroll. It opened last year in an abandoned hospital, and recently moved to an old Brooklyn church. Only 15 "audience" members are admitted each night, and there are 6-7 dancers and actors who perform the various 15 or so scenarios in different rooms and floors of the church. You are artfully guided around, sometimes alone, sometimes with others (6 at most), usually watching, but sometimes interacting (shadowing the actions of a mime through a "mirror", dealing cards e.g.). Nothing is terribly risky, though. I need to respond to this on two levels. First, the experience  was stimulating, fun, and new. It reminded me of a very professional version of the walk thru haunted houses a friend of...

The Unrepeatable Moment, a set of six short plays by John Yearley presented by The Barrow Group, was a provocative evening of theater. The plays were not written as a set, but when packaged together, presented a touching panorama of companionship, love, and loneliness. Most settings were in New York or similar urban settings. The plays were 1-2 character affairs, and all the actors were good, some extraordinary. Most memorable was "Horrible Person that I am", a monologue (Tricia Alexandro) of a lonely urban woman stood up on her last date and reaching the limits of her loneliness (through a brash NY veneer). The finale "A Low Lying Fog" was also memorable, with convincing interactions among brothers about, life and an automobile accident. Turns out one of them is actually dead, and the "Ghost"-like scenario works really well without gimmickry. The small theater and fine, intense acting made me grateful to live in a theater mecca. The depth of acting talent...

I saw the remarkable Mercury Fur  twice, since after one viewing I thought I missed some plot twists and dialogue, and because I wanted to sit closer to the violence. The play by Philip Ridley, an English pioneer in so-called "in yer face theater", defined on Wikipedia as  "Vulgar, shocking, and confrontational material on stage as a means of involving and affecting their audiences", does just that, and left me exhilarated. He uses numbing violence somewhat like Quentin Tarantino does, but without the smugness and with an effort to make serious points. The production was stunning, set in a old warehouse, and requiring audience members to climb through the set and assorted debris to get to their seats (some of which were old dubious stuffed chairs). The play begins in complete darkness which is penetrated effectively by the young cast members entering with flashlights. From here on, the play and production relentlessly and effectively communicate the vibe of being ...