“Shakespeare’s jokes: what’s the point? How many times have you seen a Shakespearean fool be funny? … I wonder if these comic routines – topical gags in Jacobean idiom, often low on dramatic or poetic value, and tailored to specific actors who’ve been dead for four centuries – are always worth persisting with. Nowadays, these once-entertaining scenes can be harder to enjoy than the serious stuff they were designed to offset.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Limestone Is The Secret To Greek Theatre’s Acoustics
“The Greek theater of Epidaurus has long been considered a marvel of acoustics. Over the years, people have come up with a number of explanations as to why those who sit in the back of the semicircular theater, built in the 4th century B.C., can hear performers on the stage with such clarity. … Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology this month showed that the secret is in . . . the seats.” (second item)
Primo Levi: More Than A Holocaust Writer
With the English-language release of “A Tranquil Star,” Primo Levi’s short-story collection, Ruth Franklin argues that the stories must be considered on their own terms. “It is a curse of those who write about the Holocaust that they are eternally identified with their horrific, unapproachable subject, even when they try to take their lives in other directions. … Not every piece of writing can be expected to bear the weight of the Holocaust, and to load these stories down with such an impossible freight risks damaging their delicate humor and intelligence.”
In Sol LeWitt’s Drawings, Beauty Of Eye And Mind
“You can feast on Sol LeWitt. The drawings he produced are mentally delicious. What makes them so delicious, so pleasing to the mind, is that he didn’t have to draw them. That’s because the artist, who died at age 78 on Sunday, employed what one might call the conceptual cookbook method. Each of LeWitt’s drawings came with its own recipe. The rest was up to you. If you followed the directions, you could cook it up yourself.”
The Sounds of Silence? Not At The Library
Cell-phone calls on speakerphone. Skateboarding down the steps. Drum circles. Possibly, just possibly, these activities don’t belong at the library — even if libraries’ missions have evolved. “Libraries are more vibrant these days, and busier … and I applaud this. But just because libraries serve a broader function than they once did shouldn’t mean that people lose all respect for what they began as: a place where silence is, if not always pristine, actively sought.”
Gregorian Chant Disrupts Monks’ Solitude With Tourists
In Solesmes, a village in western France, it falls to the mayor “to console misguided tourists who want to hear the monks in its 11th-century monastery singing in Gregorian chant. ‘People come and ask, “Can you visit the concerts?” ‘ Tourists are restricted to the back of the church, he said, shaking his white hair in mock exasperation. ‘I tell them: “You can visit at the offices. You can admire the sculptures in the church.” But the monks say, “We’re not here to receive tourists; we’re contemplatives.” ‘ “
On The Endangered Species List: Invisible Celebs
The movies “Color Me Kubrick” and “The Hoax” concern the same sort of con: the kind that is dependent on a famous but elusive figure. “Those cons probably couldn’t happen today; in a time when no public record or paparazzi snap is likely to stay hidden from snoopy Web sites, the cult of the invisible celebrity has become all but obsolete. The best evidence of that change comes with Oprah Winfrey’s recent announcement that the brilliant, press-shy novelist Cormac McCarthy will do his first television interview on her show….”
Christopher Ashley Is La Jolla’s New A.D.
“Christopher Ashley, the director of ‘Regrets Only,’ the 2000 revival of ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ and the coming Broadway production of ‘Xanadu,’ has been named the new artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. He will replace Des McAnuff, who is leaving to become one of three artistic directors at the Stratford Festival in Ontario.”
Where Is The Crying Need For Classic Dramas?
Brian Logan argues that Sam Mendes, who will bring classic plays to both sides of the pond with the BAM-Old Vic Bridge Project, is wrong to believe that such dramas are underserved. “Uniquely, in theatre, old is the default and new is seen as risky. The idea is perpetuated that audiences don’t want to see new plays (although they never seem to struggle with new films or new TV). But I’d say directors are more to blame – they prefer classics because they get to demonstrate their interpretative genius.”
Bloomsbury Too Dependent On Regular Potter Fixes?
“Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury is pinning its hopes on strong sales for the last instalment on the boy wizard’s story after 2006 profits slumped 74%. … The company, which has raked in tens of millions of pounds from JK Rowling’s success but did not have a new instalment last year, blamed the collapse in its annual profits on a poor run-up to Christmas, fewer bestsellers than in previous years and problems selling electronic rights to some of its reference titles.”