Berlin’s People’s Theatre has a well-deserved rep for outrageousness. Under its founding director of 15 years, “actors ignored huge portions of the classical texts they performed, stripped naked, screamed their lines for the duration of five-hour productions, got drunk onstage, dropped out of character, conducted private fights, tossed paint at their public, saw a third of the audience walk out as they spoke two lines at an excruciatingly slow pace, may or may not have…”
Tag: 01.14.07
The Iconic Novel That Resists A Movie
For 50 years, various heavy Hollywood hitters have tried to turn Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” into a movie. “Until now, at least, no one in Hollywood has figured out a formula that promises both to sell popcorn and to do justice to the original text, let alone to the philosophy that it hammers home endlessly, at times in lengthy speeches. (The final one is 60 pages long.)”
A Big New Home For Sculpture In Seattle
This week Seattle opens a major new $85 million sculpture park. “In a city whose entrepreneurs profess that the survival of salmon is as important as economic revitalization or the arts, it seems natural that the park, the museum and downtown development are so closely intertwined.”
Seattle’s Waterfront-Changing Sculpture Park
“The park has already captured the attention of city planners in New York and Paris for the innovative way it reunites the city and shore, and it’s being hailed as an amazing gift: Most of its $85 million price tag was paid by private donations.”
An ABT Lieutenant’s Power
Charles France was Mikhail Baryshnikov’s right hand man at ABT. He was “influential in programming and casting, and he worked closely with the press and marketing departments at Ballet Theater, where he helped to shape the careers of many young American dancers, including Susan Jaffe and Robert La Fosse. But his brash opinions and perceived favoritism alienated dancers; he played the bad cop to Mr. Baryshnikov’s good cop.”
Taken Over By A Literary Win
It took Kiran Desai seven years to write the novel that won her last year’s Man Booker Prize. Her life has completely changed since the win. “The youngest woman to win the Man Booker Prize has had a three-month whirlwind since judges hailed her second novel ‘magnificent’.”