Superfluities Redux
On culture and theatre, by George Hunka
A new journal for theatre minima and organum posts exclusively can now be found here.
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Tuesday, 08 July 2008
Richard Foreman: The Toast of Broadway?
Not quite, but it might have been. Ian W. Hill and his Gemini
CollisionWorks company will offer a production of the
once-
In 1966, [Foreman] wrote Harry in Love: A Manic Vaudeville, which came very close to having a Broadway run with Vincent Gardenia in the eponymous role (though Foreman had hoped for Alec Guinness in the role – that of a large, manic, Bronx-born, Jewish New Yorker, which is a hint to the creative conflicts that kept the show from being staged at that time). This "boulevard comedy," as Foreman calls it (he also compares it, accurately, to the 1960s plays of Murray Schisgal), remained unseen for over 30 years, until Foreman gave it to director/actor Ian W. Hill in 1999 ... saying that the part of Harry was a good one for Hill to play and he should do the show – which he did, to appreciative audiences and excellent reviews, for a very short run, the only run this obscure work has ever had. ...
The plot? Harry Rosenfeld is a big, neurotic, unnerved and unnerving man who believes his wife, Hilda, is planning to cheat on him (and he seems to be right). His response: drug her coffee and keep her knocked out until her paramour goes away. The plan works about as well as should be expected and, over several days, a number of people – the paramour, a doctor, Hilda's brother, and an "innocent" bystander – are sucked into Harry's manic, snowballing energy as it becomes an eventual avalanche of (hysterically funny) psychosis.
Harry in Love runs at the Brick from 31 July through 24 August. Tickets and schedule information available soon at The Brick's Web site.
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Wednesday, 25 June 2008
Howard Barker and Sarah Kane
A unique opportunity to see two of the most noteworthy British plays of the past quarter-century begins next week when the Potomac Theatre Project visits New York's Atlantic Stage 2 for its annual repertory season.
Howard Barker's Scenes from an Execution (1985/1990) is the story of Galactia, a 15th-century Venetian painter commissioned by the government to portray a bloody military confrontation. Her painting provokes controversial responses from her patrons and leads her to a difficult decision about her work and her collaboration with society's conformist forces. Richard Romagnoli directs.
Sarah Kane's Crave (1998) is a quartet for four voices as they weave among the detritus of memory, abuse and love; Cheryl Faraone is the director here. The 45-minute Crave is paired with the New York premiere of Somewhere in the Pacific, a play by Neal Bell and directed by Jim Petosa, about the men of a World War II troopship on its journey to Okinawa.
The plays run 1-26 July 2008; full schedule information can be found here. Atlantic Stage 2 is located at 330 West 16th Street; tickets available through Ticket Central for Scenes and Crave/Somewhere. $24.00 gets you in the door.
Posted at 12.52 pm in /Openings
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Wednesday, 11 June 2008
The Potomac Theatre Project, which brought No End of Blame to New York last summer,
returns this year during the month of July with productions of Sarah
Kane's
Crave (directed by Cheryl Faraone), Neil Bell's Somewhere in the
Pacific (directed by Jim Petosa) and Howard Barker's Scenes
from an Execution (directed by Barker colleague Richard Romagnoli).
Scenes stars Jan Maxwell, late of Broadway's Coram Boy
and Sixteen Wounded, as Galactia. The PTP offers these plays in
repertory from 1 July through 26 July at The Atlantic Stage 2, 330 West
16th Street. Tickets and schedule information available via Ticket Central
(for the double-
Posted at 8.47 am in /Openings
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Friday, 16 May 2008
"Of the giving of many prizes there
is no end ..."
(Apologies to the author of Ecclesiastes 12:12)
(See entry for 19 May)
A highly selective, prejudiced look at a few upcoming productions, along with other items of interest:
Sunday, 18 May: The MCC Playlab Series continues tonight with a staged reading of Sangeet by Ranbir Sidhu. Sidhu's play, "a comedy without manners," is a poetic exploration of multiculturalism in Margaret Thatcher's London, focusing on an ex-strongman from India, a male nurse who leans toward euthanasia for some of his more borderline patients, and their children. Sidhu's plays (I've read this one and True East) are physically and linguistically explosive meditations on race, sex, shame and guilt, uneasy and complex approaches to uneasy and complex questions – a staged reading may not pass along the physical dynamics, but certainly will demonstrate the linguistic. It's free and open to the public; a wine and cheese reception will follow. At Baruch College's Engelman Recital Hall, 25th Street between Lexington and Third. The reading begins at 5.00pm.
Monday, 19 May: Wherefore theatre criticism in New York? John Heilpern of the New York Observer, Jonathan Kalb of HotReview.org and Alexis Soloski of the Village Voice each respond to the question during the panel discussion "New York Theatre Criticism" at the Segal Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, tonight at 6.30pm. It's free and open to the public; more information at the Segal Center Web page here.
And it's unlikely to run very long; Soloski, at least, will be heading downtown later tonight – as one of the judges of this year's Obie Awards, which will be handed out this evening at Webster Hall, she won't want to miss the ceremony to be hosted by Elizabeth Marvel and Bill Camp. You can watch the ceremony yourself during the first live Webcast of the event; more information at the Obies Web page. And keep an eye out for me; I'll be there too. Though I must promise to keep shtum on the evening itself; what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, as the commercial says.
Tuesday, 20 May: Also this week from the MCC Theater is the world premiere of a new play from the controversial (and my erstwhile correspondent) Neil LaBute, Reasons to be Pretty. LaBute's new play is the third in a trilogy (the first two parts were The Shape of Things and Fat Pig) about America's obsession with physical beauty and the warping effects this obsession has upon American men and women alike. Reasons to be Pretty runs through 5 July; more information here.
Wednesday, 21 May: Something about the Greeks has gotten into
the water (or, more likely, the wine) over at PS122. Following La Femme est Morte, the Shalimar's current
production about Phaedra, Oedipus is in their sights now. The Pan Pan Theatre
of Dublin is offering up Oedipus Loves You, beginning tonight at
8.00pm and running through 1 June. "Pan Pan's punk rock sensibility
strikes a fierce chord in this savvy update of Sophocles' classic drama of
the ultimate dysfunctional family. ... Oedipus is still counselled by the
wise Tiresias, but the sightless sage is now a Freudian analyst and
ex-
Posted at 8.08 am in /Openings
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Friday, 09 May 2008
Shalimar Wishes You
a Happy
Mother's Day
(See entry for 14 May)
A highly selective, prejudiced look at a few upcoming productions, along with other items of interest:
Saturday, 10 May: The unofficial 2007-2008 Edward Albee theatre season in New York concludes this week with the opening of Occupant, Albee's recent play about sculptor Louise Nevelson. The Signature Theatre Company production stars Mercedes Ruehl and Larry Bryggman under the direction of Pam MacKinnon; Occupant runs through 6 July. More information at the Signature Theatre Company's Web page for the show.
Monday, 12 May: Polish director Grzegorz Jarzyna of Poland's TR
Warszawa theatre company will talk to Susan Feldman, artistic director
of St. Ann's Playhouse, about his upcoming Brooklyn production of
Macbeth tonight at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 365 Fifth
Avenue. TR Warszawa is one of Poland's leading contemporary theatre
companies, revisioning theatrical traditions for the contemporary stage;
Jarzyna's production of Medea at Vienna's Burgtheater won the 2007
Nestroy-Preis. The evening is co-presented by the Polish Cultural
Institute, which is almost single-
Wednesday, 14 May: Performance group The Shalimar returns their show, the
whimsically-
Thursday, 15 May: The Ontological-
Posted at 8.44 am in /Openings
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