Criticultura em Portugal

The Ferryman Written by Jez Butterworth Directed by Sam Mendes Gielgud Theater, London February 7, 2018 Jez Butterworth (b. 1969) has written seven plays, two of which ( Mojo, Jerusalem ) have won multiple awards in Britain. I was not prepared for the depth, detail, and emotional power of his most recent award-winning play The Ferryman , now playing in London’s West End. This 3½ hour play, set in the troubled times of the Northern Ireland civil war of the 1970s, simultaneously encompasses Irish identity, Shakespearean themes of revenge and fate, and an O’Neill-like feeling that maleficent gods are pulling the puppet strings of good people. The title refers to Charon, the ferryman of Hades, who carried souls across the River Styx from the Land of the Living to the Land of the Dead. This play centers on an absent figure, a young man killed during the Irish troubles, whose body was never found (and properly buried), thus condemning him to wander the shores of the Styx, n...

42 nd Street Music and Lyrics by Harry Warren and Al Dubin Book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble Directed by Mark Bramble Drury Lane Theater, London February 6, 2018 I have rarely enjoyed a musical as much as the recent performance of 42 nd Street that I attended in London. The musical, which premiered on Broadway in 1980, is a salute to the great musical traditions of the 1930’s: tapdancing, massive production numbers, choreographer Busby Berkeley, and the only-in-America plot device that a nobody can become a star. Premiering in an era of American optimism (remember Reagan’s “Morning in America”--seems like another world), the musical is an unapologetic, at times politically dated vehicle for pure escapism. It does this so well that I did not miss the dark currents and subcontext that I normally seek in theater. At heart, 42 nd Street salutes the great Warner Brothers musicals of the depression. These were some of the earliest films using sound, as Hollywoo...

The Play that Goes Wrong By Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields Lyceum Theater, Manhattan January 23, 2018 Jerry Springer, The Opera Music and Lyrics by Richard Thomas Book by Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas The New Group January 28, 2018 After a theater season stuffed with lots of grim, psychological, or apocalyptic themes, I have somehow managed to see three comedies in a row. One, Mankind ( see my review last week) was brilliant—thought provoking and politically astute as well as funny, if in a dark sort of way. Two more plays reminded me that comedy is a very individual thing, and what makes one playgoer roll on the ground in hysterics can be met by indifference by another.   The Play that Goes Wrong is a silly affair, indebted to Monty Python or (more distantly) Joe Orton, but without their intelligence and political satire. It is a very old-fashioned PG-rated farce about an amateur British drama club that attempts to mount a murder myst...

Mankind Written and directed by Robert O’Hara Starring Bobby Moreno and Anson Mount Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan January 14, 2018 There are many ways to explore religion. One could join a church for immersion, read the Bible, Torah, Koran at home, read Karen Armstrong’s A History of God (1993) or any of her other excellent books, or travel around the world immersing oneself in holy sites like the Vatican, Temple Mount, the Ajanta caves, etc. Or one could head to 42 nd St. to see Robert O’Hara’s darkly funny play Mankind , which covers more religious ground in 2 hours than most religious texts can in 700 pages. At its simplest level, this is the story of two dudes (Jason and Mark) who, in a sci-fi world in which women are extinct, have a baby. The precise anatomy and physiology is not explained, and a lawyer unhelpfully tells us that after Woman’s  extinction, “Mankind adapted”. The thing is, Jason and Mark’s baby is a girl, the first born in over a century, an...

Farinelli and the King Written by Claire van Kampen Starring Mark Rylance, Iestyn Davis, and Sam Crane Belasco Theater, Manhattan December 24, 2017 After seeing so much small-scale off-Broadway theater lately, the opulence of Farinelli and the King hit me with a jolt. The antique Belasco theater (a notorious knee-crusher, built for the patrons of 1907), was resplendent, with its opulent architecture and old-fashioned separate opera boxes cleverly modified; on-stage opera boxes were designed surrounding the performing area, creating a continuous opera box architecture that extended from the audience around the stage itself, creating sort of an immersion in an 18 th century opera house. The theater was artfully draped in rich velvet to hide the art-nouveau décor (inappropriate to 1740), yet maintained its splendor. A small baroque orchestra was upstage, in the balcony behind the actors, dressed in appropriate 1700s attire as well. The lavish onstage décor included Fragonar...