Criticultura em Portugal

The Bacchae Written by Euripides Directed by Anne Bogart Starring Ellen Lauren and Akiko Aizawa SITI Company Brooklyn Academy of Music October 6, 2018 The NYC-based SITI Company was founded in 1992 to “ redefine and revitalize contemporary theater in the United States through an emphasis on international cultural exchange, training, and collaboration” thus “providing a gymnasium-for-the-soul”. Their productions have included Japanese drama, performance art, and a play based on the quotes of wacky composer John Cage. I am not sure what all of this means, but they did put on a provocative version of Euripides  The Bacchae  at BAM in October. It would have been even more cool to see it at its premiere in September at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, set amidst Greek sculpture and architecture. The performance used a literal translation of the plot, but played around with both gender and culture in its presentation, not always to clear effect. The play center...

Emma and Max Written and directed by Todd Solondz Starring Zonya Love, Ilana Becker, and Matt Servitto The Flea Theater, Manhattan October 12, 2018 I’m a big fan of the indie director Todd Solondz (b. 1959), whose 1990’s films Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse viciously and virtuosically eviscerate the suburban dream. I’ve been saddened that his creative well may have run dry, with little work since 2000. Emma and Max, which just debuted off Broadway , is his first play, and perhaps is an effort to reinvigorate his career writing for the stage. It’s certainly a good start. It bears his distinctive style, with memorable visuals and some shock plotting. But he has not yet learned quite how to pace a drama in the real time of the theater, without the editing and jumps available in film. One of the characteristics of the great 1990s Solondz films is the juxtaposition of innocence and rhapsodic pictures of suburban bliss with the utmost depravity (rape, pedophilia, ...

Lewiston/Clarkston Written by Samuel D. Hunter Directed by Davis McCallum Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater, Manhattan October 28, 2018 Playwright Samuel D. Hunter (b. 1981) is an Idaho explant now resident in NYC. His award winning The Whale and many of his other plays are personal dramas set in Idaho or similar Western locales. His keen eye for rural people and intergenerational conflict is timely in our re-examination of city vs. country in the Trump era. The small scale plays (3 characters each) Lewiston and Clarkston (2015-16) were presented together in gripping productions off Broadway this fall. Each play was 70-80 minutes long, and there was a “communal dinner” in between (an odd folksy juxtaposition of Manhattanites, either eating BBQ or tofu!). The setting was really great; the regular theater was gutted to create a bleak, small church auditorium with shabby furnishings, folding chairs, and stacked Costco boxes of Cheesy Poofs all around…we could have been any...

La Fanciulla del West Composed by Giacomo Puccini Directed by Gregory Keller Production Designed by Giancarlo del Monaco Starring Eva Marie Westbroek and Jonas Kaufmann Metropolitan Opera House October 23, 2018 The True Written by Sharr White Starring Edie Falco and Michael McKean The New Group October 21, 2018 Puccini’s opera La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the West) and Sharr White’s new play The True could not be more different in affect and style. But both were staged in NYC recently in wonderful performances featuring powerful heroines that take no prisoners and struggle to, then finally succeed at success in male-dominated worlds. Both are excellent choices for a year in which women and minorities come to the front in the arts. The Puccini opera, based on a popular play The Girl of the Golden West by David Belasco, premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1910 to popular acclaim, with a star-studded cast featuring Emmy Destinn, Enrico Caruso ...

American Ballet Theater David Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, Manhattan October 20, 2018 Humans Directed by Yaron Lifschitz Circa Contemporary Circus, Brisbane AUS Brooklyn Academy   of Music October 4, 2018 I saw two very different but entertaining dance evenings in October. The grand American Ballet Theater is known for its full length romantic ballets (like Swan Lake) on the huge stage of the Metropolitan Opera. But in the fall they do an annual series of collections of shorter works in the more viewer-friendly confines of the Koch Theater, normally the purview of the New York City Ballet. This year they intruded on the normal NYCB turf of George Balanchine, performing a wonderful version of his Symphonie Concertante (1945), set to the wonderful concerto for violin and viola by Mozart. The dance oozed classicism, with typical Balanchine tutu-ed ballerinas arrayed in geometrical forms, perfectly shifting to changes in the music. The two instrumental voices (w...