Rob McLean and Matt Kahler in the Hypocrites’ “Pirates of Penzance,” an update of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera (Photo: Matthew Gregory Hollis) We know that consciousness has no boundaries. It is for that reason that the connectedness of everything running through us is utterly overwhelming. In an effort to manage our day to […]
Theater
A Stunning The Glass Menagerie
Zachary Quinto as Tom, Cherry Jones as Amanda Wingfield, and Celia Keenan-Bolger as Laura in the A.R.T.’s production of “The Glass Menagerie.” (Courtesy A.R.T./Michael J. Lutch) The Glass Menagerie is a play that has touched me in a tender place for a long time. I grew up with this Tennessee Williams masterpiece, first seeing it […]
Small Swishings of Joy
The last page of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations . . . Life Is Not What You expected — cows ruminate by the highway even in rain or bat their ears forward and back and how you thought the story of your life would get told: the children you thought you’d already have by now partially grown […]
That’s Extraordinary
Rehearsing for Pippin at A.R.T. (Photo: Dina Rudick/Boston Globe) In my previous post I wrote about how surprising it was to find such striking beauty in the overstated, extremist interior of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia. It brings to mind one of my art professor’s words to me from so long ago, “To make a great painting […]
A Distant Mirror: Coriolanus on the Common
Coriolanus, on the Boston Common (Photo: Tamir Kalifa for the Boston Globe) How invigorating to revisit something you thought you knew (and might have dismissed as “been there, done that”) and find it utterly compelling. That was my response after seeing the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s production of Coriolanus last night. Not one of my favorite […]
Two Chords Are Enough
The cast of Woody Sez (Photo: Wendy Mutz) One of the things I love about India is that the stories most sacred to the culture are preserved everywhere. From street shrines to oversized temple statues, references to the ancient Sanskrit epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are ubiquitous. After a while even interlopers like […]
Loving Schubert, in Any Form
Three Pianos, currently playing at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, is another successful production in line with the theatrical proclivities of artistic director Diane Paulus—theatrical mastery, audience engagement, crisp production values, meaningful content (and context,) and the delivery of an evening out that is both fun and informatively rich. Paulus has demonstrated a deft […]
The Best Possible World, Again and Again
Dr. Pangloss and Candide, from the production playing at the Huntington Theater Writing and thinking about T. S. Eliot (see my previous post) has engaged me in thoughts about what is timeless and why certain works of art just keep speaking to generation after generation. It is an esoteric chemistry, what must come together for […]
The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
Adaptation and interpretation. It’s an issue that visual artists only deal with occasionally. But this is a topic that looms large in musical performances and in theater. And what is given license at any given time to be adapted and “updated” is often not clear cut or logical. The keepers of our collective theatrical wisdom—from […]
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Being Present
Patsy Rodenburg Patsy Rodenburg, acting coach extraordinare and author of a number of books including one of my favorites, The Second Circle, has a six minute video posted on YouTube. This short piece could be viewed daily, a quick reminder of how to constellate your day. Her message is simple: Show up. Be present. Be […]