There is a cast of four; “surrounding them are stacks and stacks of composition books with black-and-white marbled covers — not the spiral notebooks [Spalding] Gray habitually laid on the table before disclosing his latest collection of innermost thoughts to the audience. These incongruities aside, the piece being rehearsed is indeed a new Spalding Gray work, but it is the first not to star the author, who leaped off the Staten Island Ferry in January 2004….”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Smiley On Sex And (Dubious) Standards
Sure, Jane Smiley thought a lot about sex as she was writing her new novel, but the more she wrote about it, the less it had any shock value for her. “Then, just as the book was about to be published, it was declared by no less than Mr. John Updike (in a review in the New Yorker) to ‘set a new mark for explicitness in a work of non-pornographic intent.’ What was I doing?”
Amid Moscow’s Wealth, Art Exhibition Space Emerges
“The Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, a Moscow-based organization headed by Vladimir Semenikhin, the owner of construction company Stroyteks, opens Russia’s first private contemporary-art exhibition hall this evening. … ‘Many Russian collectors hide their art, but our collection is for all to see,’ Semenikhin, 39, said….”
At Paris Opera, Darkness Falls And Show Goes On
“The revival of Halevy’s ‘La Juive’ at the Paris Opera, after an absence of 73 years, started with a bewildering opening night. The stage was shrouded in various degrees of darkness. At the end, director Pierre Audi and his team didn’t appear at the curtain calls. This was not an artistic choice. … We were witnessing a strike of the lighting technicians.”
Music Floods Indian FM Band, And Radio Flourishes
“Deregulation by the government, rising consumer affluence and a growing youth culture have Indians tuning in to the airwaves in greater numbers than ever. They are drawn to a more traditional medium that is expanding even as other, newer forms of entertainment, such as cable TV and the Internet, are also reaching bigger markets. Against those options, radio continues to hold one clear advantage: It’s free.”
British Theatre Critic Sheridan Morley, 65
“Sheridan Morley, the prominent British critic, biographer and broadcaster who devoted his career to chronicling and, often, celebrating plays and players, died on Friday at his home in London.”
Online, Conversing Without Social Cues
Why is it so easy to say something in an e-mail or on a blog without having the slightest idea how it will come across to the reader? Turns out there is “a design flaw inherent in the interface between the brain’s social circuitry and the online world. In face-to-face interaction, the brain reads a continual cascade of emotional signs and social cues, instantaneously using them to guide our next move so that the encounter goes well. … And in e-mail there are no channels for voice, facial expression or other cues from the person who will receive what we say.”
‘Richard III,’ With Arab Folk Songs
Director-adapter Sulayman Al-Bassam has brought an Arabic “Richard III” to Stratford-upon-Avon. “The form has freed him to consider contemporary Arab politics in a way that would have been all but impossible without the refracting mirror of Shakespeare, said Mr. Bassam, 34, who is half Kuwaiti and half British. ‘You could write such a play,’ he said, musing on the notion of a present-day political work, ‘but you’d be best advised to set it in England in the 1400s.’ “
In India, A Film Is Shunned By Nervous Theater Owners
The Indian film “Parzania,” about the 2002 religious riots in Gujarat that killed 1,100 people, is showing in theaters around the country — but not in Gujarat. “India maintains a storied and constantly replenished dustbin of cannot-be-seen movies. … ‘Parzania’ stands out, though, because theater owners are refusing to screen the film even after it was approved by the censor board.”
When The Bands Come Marching Back In
In New Orleans, belonging to a high school band is a mark of adolescent prestige, not loserdom. When Hurricane Katrina struck, closing schools and scattering the populace, those bands — which have long nurtured the city’s musical talent — suffered, and many of them disappeared. “But some of the top high school bands are back: a rare, heartening sign not only for the [Mardi Gras] parades but also for the long-term vitality of New Orleans culture.”