Theater: Sweet and Sad at The Public Theater, Nov. 2013

This synopsis is from http://thirdrailrep.org/events.php?show=26:

It’s the 10th Anniversary of September 11 and the Apple family find themselves gathered together in Rhinebeck, NY for an impromptu lunch before heading off to an afternoon memorial service. While Uncle Benjamin rehearses for a reading, emotions run the gamut as the Apples catch up on politics (both familial and political), tell ghost stories, tease each other mercilessly, and confront the difficulties of loss. Filled with humor and sorrow, SWEET AND SAD celebrates the challenges of life in 21st century America and features the returning cast from last season’s hit show, THAT HOPEY CHANGEY THING.

I'm a huge fan of playwright Richard Nelson and his Apple Family series. In this show, which is second in a set of four plays, the four siblings gather and touch, as best they can, the deepest wounds. There has been a death in the family, divorce, separation, unemployed children, illness, injury, and frustration at economic and professional paralysis. As the play opens, Barbara enters the empty dining room and looks like she's already been crying. Marion, under heart breaking circumstances, has moved into Barbara's house to live with her. Much has happened since the last play and "Sweet and Sad" artfully unfolds.

In addition to the personal tragedies are reflections about 9/11: the loss of intimate friends who have been ritually celebrated and mourned by brother Richard for the past 10 years, and the anonymous thousands killed who are made personal through Barbara's discovery of a set of discarded notebooks found in a secondhand store.

The arrows of emotion and meaning fly quickly in this play. An audience member who is in a happy place, without a "sore spot" from such pain in their own life, might find that the arrows fly past without resonance, missing their mark. But for others, they will feel the sharp sting. I left with tearful eyes.

The questions about 9/11 might seem familiar, but what might transpire if - like Barbara's high school seniors - we were given a whole hour to discuss each one? Hero or victim? Suicide bombers? Suicidal teens? How do the living make peace with their own souls? And how do we fit into the political landscape that we help create and move through?

One thing is for certain: these siblings fly in each other's faces at every turn. They interrupt ruthlessly. They deflect praise with a irritating self-negation. They throw up walls and boundaries where conversation is not permitted, making those psychic walls themselves invisible characters in the play. It's no wonder that boyfriend Tim gets to tell a ghost story: the dead, and our ultimate inability to talk about them, are very much present in tonight's play of "Sweet and Sad."

--dp

Theater: Sleeping Beauty at the New Victory Theater 11/1/13

Sleeping Beauty by Carlo Colla & Sons Marionette Company from Milan, Italy.

It is interesting to try to explain why this production is so touchingly beautiful. The marionettes are each a study in fine craftsmanship, and the manipulation by the Italian company is intricate and masterful. And yet - what conveys is the fragility of it all and, perhaps as a reflection, the fragility of all humans too.

The puppets still move like real marionettes and not like the smooth-action cartoons we've become familiar with in movies and TV. Real marionettes often move with jerking little stabs, their dances awkward in spite of their characters' glamour and grace.

The ancient fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty still conveys the feeling of "life's joys threatened by Misery." Children might watch this production focusing on princess and prince, a destiny of romantic love and marriage. But I feel certain that the myth has sustained itself through the ages because of the anguish felt by parents: the natural fear for the safety of their child when young, the disruption of youthful joys by puberty, the hopeless anguish when illness or death of a child must be accepted.

Combining these thoughts with the fragile marionettes made my experience of this Sleeping Beauty a profoundly deep one. I could have cried, leaving the theater, except for the joyous ending that the fairy tale version demands.

About the company:
The marionette company Carlo Colla and Sons is one of the best known companies in the world, with nearly three centuries of activity and has been Teatro Stabile of Puppets (1906-1957) Gerolamo Theatre in Piazza Beccaria in Milan. Today, his shows are appreciated throughout the world by an audience of adults and young people, on the occasion of the most important national and international events.  (http://www.marionettecolla.org/)

Theater: That Hopey Changey Thing, Oct. 2013 at the Public Theater

A quiet and typical family scene opens:  preparations are being made for a family dinner in a liberal suburban town in New York state.

Newcomer Tim is introduced to a family of four adult siblings and their memory-challenged uncle Ben. 

Written and directed by Richard Nelson, there's just enough-of-everything present in the room to create an evening of surprise, drama, humor, and sharp daggers of politicized anger and - even - irrational hatred. Underscoring the dialogue is the premise that one of the siblings, Jane, is researching a book that she imagines might be useful as a societal autobiography: the manner and mores of common social situations revealing deeper beliefs and values by both "what is said" and "what is not said."

The playwright has cleverly focused the audience's attention on the unspoken. 

A brilliant piece of writing and beautifully acted.  -dp

From Joe Dziemianowicz's review in the New York Post: 

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/hopey-changey-wake-reviews-fine-tuned-ensembes-drive-political-plays-article-1.450088

Fine-tuned ensembles drive two politically charged plays at the Public Theater.
Richard Nelson's "That Hopey Changey Thing" begins with a dying cry of a dog, Oliver. The whimper echoes the sick feelings of everyone at the cozy Rhinebeck home of high-school English teacher Barbara Apple (Maryann Plunkett). 

She lives there with her ailing uncle Benjamin (Jon DeVries), a retired actor with amnesia brought on by a heart attack. Also on hand are Barbara's siblings -- Richard (Jay O. Sanders), a state lawyer, Marian (Laila Robins), a second-grade teacher, and Jane (J. Smith-Cameron), a writer who's brought her actor boyfriend Tim (Shuler Hensley).

It's Election Night 2010 (as in Tuesday) and this liberal Democratic clan expects a beating at the polls. Talk turns to "us" and "them," Cuomo, who's a shoo-in, and disenchantment with Obama. The mention of Sarah Palin (whose quote inspires the title) causes choking. Ditto when Richard reveals he has taken a job with the Republicans.

For timeliness, "Hopey Changey," presented as part of the Public's issue-oriented Lab series, has immediacy. But the election-night setting is just a convenience. What makes the play interesting is the detailed portrait that emerges of the all-American Apples -- a group with polish, bruises and maybe a even worm or two.

Nelson, who directs his play, evokes the Apples in conversation that sounds as natural as breathing. And the cast couldn't be better.

There's also a never-seen character, Toby, a new pooch for Benjamin to replace Oliver, who kept soiling the house in his dying days. Toby makes the same messes his predecessor did. In that way, he's like a lot of elected officials.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/hopey-changey-wake-reviews-fine-tuned-ensembes-drive-political-plays-article-1.450088#ixzz2j1mF2I3E

Theater: Fun Home

From the review by Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/fun-home-theater-review-article-1.1492941

The dearly departed were well cared for at the Bechdel funeral home in small-town Pennsylvania. 

“We remove all signs of trauma,” promises family-man proprietor Bruce Bechdel.
But the same can’t be said about the Bechdels themselves. 

The family shows several signs of trauma, especially the haunted Alison, who struggles with her past and the man who raised her.

So it goes in “Fun Home,” the achingly beautiful musical at the Public Theater. It speaks to one family and all families torn by secrets and lies.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/fun-home-theater-review-article-1.1492941#ixzz2j1kgcP7n

Theater: Wallace Shawn's "Grasses of a Thousand Colors" at the Public Theater, Oct. 2013

In this masterful epic play, Wallace Shawn takes us down the treacherous path of reasonableness. He's comfortable in his robe and slippers; he sees us, the audience, and welcomes us. Are we flattered when he tells us we look like a box of chocolates, ready to be eaten and enjoyed? Yes! Are we sympathetic with his ambitions as a scientist to solve the greatest problem of humankind: insufficient food? Yes! Are we entertained by stories of sexual prowess and sexual adventure? No surprise: Yes!

Written by Wallace Shawn and directed by Andre Gregory, the play unfolds as a futuristic vision of the accidental destruction of the world.  The lead character, Ben, has invented an improvement to the food chain. As audience, we experience the anguish of self-destruction while entertained by Ben's life story in which overt and outlandish sexual behavior is a symptom of the new illness he has imposed on humankind.  Is this a mirror of our "reasonable" present-day lives? Frighteningly I must answer, yes.  -dp

More from critic John Lahr's 2009 review in the New Yorker Magazine:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/theatre/2009/06/01/090601crth_theatre_lahr

At the beginning of the three-hour “Grasses of a Thousand Colors” (superbly directed by André Gregory), Shawn is at it again: he stands before us as Ben, a scientist and a memoirist, in a black dressing gown, black monogrammed slippers, and black cravat, and plays his familiar wrong-footing game of self-deprecation. He is dressed as an agent of darkness, but he is bright with good will. “Well. Hello, everybody. Hello! Hello there!” he says, in his lisping, halting, high-pitched voice. He goes on, “When you’re all so nicely sitting there and listening to me, I’m deriving a great deal of pleasure from each and every one of you, as if you were chocolates I was eating.” In this futuristic dream play, eating and being eaten are important leitmotifs. Ben, we learn, is one of the barbarians who have devoured the planet, and, beneath his charm, he is as unrepentant as a hedge-fund manager. “Loaves, with Fishes, for Dinner” is the title of the memoir from which he reads to us, and which hints at his majestic self-infatuation.

Ben is perhaps the most unreliable of Shawn’s many unreliable narrators. His smugness—“I was born lucky”—is rivalled only by the imperialism of his convictions. “We’re fixers, improvers,” he says of his optimistic generation. The thing that he has fixed, it turns out, is the “problem of food.” As he pompously puts it, “There was, on the one hand, an enormous crowd of entities—ourselves and others—roaming the planet, trying to sustain themselves, or, in other words, looking for something to eat; and on the other hand there was a tiny, inadequate crowd of entities available on the planet to be eaten.” The appliance of Ben’s science allows the animal kingdom—frogs, cows, his own dog, Rufus, and, by implication, Homo sapiens—to feed on its own kind, as well as on the corpses of other animals. The discovery has made him rich; it has also destroyed the food chain. Things have gone disastrously wrong: animals are dying, and people are vomiting and keeling over.  (jump to link to read complete review)

Thurs. Oct. 17th: Esteli Gomez, soprano, and Colin Davin, guitar

An evening of songs for soprano voice and guitar entitled "Ancient Melodies, Modern Echoes" was presented at the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church at 65th St. and Central Park West.

The program was split 3-ways between composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) ("perhaps the greatest 20th century composer of art songs"), Renaissance composer John Dowland (1563-1626), and a single piece by contemporary composer Caroline Shaw.

Of Dowland's songs, I loved the ancient poetry written in the time of Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare. This excerpt from Come Again:

Come again, Sweet love doth now invite, Thy graces that refrain, To do me due delight,  To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die, With thee again in sweetest sympathy. 

Come again, That I may cease to mourn, Through thy unkind disdain: For now left and forlorn I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die, In deadly pain and endless misery.

All the day, The sun that lends me shine, By frowns do cause me pine, And feeds me with delay, Her smiles my springs, that makes my joys to grow, Her frowns the Winters of my woe.  (and poem continues...)

Of Britten's many songs, it was a special treat to follow along through the sections of Nocturnal after John Dowland, op. 70 for solo guitar and, in the last part, soprano voice:

i.      Musingly  

ii.     Very Agitated 

iii.    Restless 

iv.    Uneasy 

v.     March-Like 

vi.    Dreaming 

vii.   Gently Rocking 

viii.  Passacaglia 

ix.    Slow and Quiet ("Come, heavy Sleep")

It was a marvelous performance in the lovely and colorful setting of the church. It was extra special to be there with son Elliot.

Tues. Oct. 14th: The Gotham Jazzmen (free weekly noon concert)

Piano. Upright bass. Clarinet. Cornet. Drums. Trombone.

The professional pedigrees of the Gotham Jazzmen, as they like to be known when they are performing at the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts (Lincoln Center, UWS), would combine to be a couple of hundred years of music education and performance.

They gave us a rich, nuanced experience of New Orlean's-type jazz.  Some hits from their set list (from my notes, might be slightly wrong titles!):

• Bye Bye Blackbird
• Everybody Loves My Baby
• How Deep is the Ocean
• Crazy Rhythm
• Creole Love Song
• Christopher Columbus
• Willow Weep for Me
• Me, Myself and I

I can't wait to become a regular at their Tuesday noon concerts.  Three of them have another band called The Creole Cookin' Jazz Band, which is performing on Sunday nights from 7-10 pm at Arthur's Tavern in Greenwich Village, NYC.  http://www.arthurstavernnyc.com/performances.html

Sunday Oct. 13th: "The Forty Part Motet" in the Fuentidueña Chapel, the Cloisters, NYC

The Cloisters Museum, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, hosted this exhilarating soundscape performed by 40 speakers set up in an oval inside a 12th century chapel.

"The Forty Part Motet (2001), a sound installation by Janet Cardiff (Canadian, born 1957), will be the first presentation of contemporary art at The Cloisters."

It made me wonder what it would be like to be a choir member able to perform an exquisite piece of complex music. By walking the perimeter, as the first video below demonstrates, the listener is able to focus on individual voices, one at a time. I was thrilled to practically hear a new piece of music come to life at various speakers, experiencing each chorister's personal soundscape, as I walked the perimeter.

The Cloisters describes this as an installation of contemporary art - the first one ever - at the museum. Perhaps they could make this a permanent exhibition? It would be an awesome addition.

From YouTube, a good example of the soundscape (although in a different architectural setting):

 

 More about the project, as performed in another location:

"The Recommendation" by Jonathan Caren at the Flea Theater 9/7/13

The Recommendation is a fine play energetically performed by The Bats of the Flea Theater. The storyline: college student Feldman is generous with his offerings of social advancement strategies to his hapless roommate Izzy. These include "recommendations" by his influential family to aid Izzy to be admitted to graduate school and later offered a prestigious job.

We learn that Feldman also has a dark secret; Izzy remains innocent of the fact. When Feldman finally asks for a favor, can Izzy refuse?  -dp









(Online information source: http://www.theflea.org/show_detail.php?page_type=0&page_id=1&show_id=138)

"Aaron Feldman is popular and connected. He is everything his best friend Iskinder Iudoku is not, but when Feldman gets pulled over for a broken taillight, he is introduced to a world where privilege means nothing and Iskinder has the advantage. A play about friendship, class and where loyalty has its limits.

The 2012 production at The Old Globe in San Diego won the Craig Noel Outstanding New Play Award."

Featuring The Bats:
Barron Bass, James Fouhey, Alex J. Gould, Donaldo Prescod, Orlando Rivera, and Austin Trow.
Written by Jonathan Caren
Directed by Kel Haney
Set Design Caite Hevner Kemp
Lighting Design Nick Solyom
Costume Design Sydney Maresca
Sound Design Elisheba Ittoop
Fight Director Mark Olsen

Film: Twenty Feet from Stardom

Movie Info

Millions know their voices, but no one knows their names. In his compelling new film 20 FEET FROM STARDOM, award-winning director Morgan Neville shines a spotlight on the untold true story of the backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends of the 21st century. Triumphant and heartbreaking in equal measure, the film is both a tribute to the unsung voices who brought shape and style to popular music and a reflection on the conflicts, sacrifices and rewards of a career spentharmonizing with others. These gifted artists span a range of styles, genres and eras of popular music, but each has a uniquely fascinating and personal story to share of life spent in the shadows of superstardom. Along with rare archival footage and a peerless soundtrack, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM boasts intimate interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger and Sting to name just a few. However, these world-famous figures take a backseat to the diverse array of backup singers whose lives and stories take center stage in the film. (c) TWC-Radius

http://twentyfeetfromstardom.com/synopsis

Film: You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

Found online: http://www.kinolorber.com/film.php?id=1346

Release Year: 2012
Running Time: 115
Color Type: Color
Country: France, Germany
Language: French w/English subtitles

Based on two works by the playwright Jean Anouilh,You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet opens with a who's-who of French acting royalty (including Mathieu Amalric, Michel Piccoli and frequent Resnais muse Sabine Azema) being summoned to the reading of a late playwright's last will and testament. There, the playwright (Denis Podalydes) appears on a TV screen from beyond the grave and asks his erstwhile collaborators to evaluate a recording of an experimental theater company performing his Eurydice--a play they themselves all appeared in over the years. But as the video unspools, instead of watching passively, these seasoned thespians begin acting out the text alongside their youthful avatars, looking back into the past rather like mythic Orpheus himself. Gorgeously shot by cinematographer Eric Gautier on stylized sets that recall the French poetic realism of the 1930s, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet is an alternately wry and wistful valentine to actors and the art of performance from a director long fascinated by the intersection of life, theater and cinema.

 

Film: Image from The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice

Film: THE FLAVOR OF GREEN TEA OVER RICE

From the Film Forum website:

"(1952) At first glance, Shin Saburi seems the thick-headed dullard wife Michiyo Kogure likens to a carp, while she seems a spoiled snob, but then the layers of character peel away, as Keiko Tsushima (7 Samurai) flees from an arranged marriage and eventual yakuzalegend Koji Tsuruta extols buying second-hand. And a resolution seems inevitable at the simple plain meal of the title. Approx. 115 min. 35mm."

http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/flavor_of_green_tea_over_rice

Film: The Discovery at Dawn

From the website:  http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/the-discovery-at-dawn

Kent and I were swept away by this film today at Lincoln Center.  Exiting the theater, we glanced into the nearby cafe and saw director Susanna Nicchiarelli sitting at a nearby table. We spoke to her and told her how much we enjoyed the film; she stood up and smiled; we had a sweet private conversation with her for a minute or two. We were so excited to be able to share with her our appreciation of her brilliant and engaging film!



THE DISCOVERY AT DAWN
LA SCOPERTA DELL'ALBA | SUSANNA NICCHIARELLI, 2012
ITALY | ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES | 95 MINUTES

"Rome, 1981:  Professor Mario Tessandori is shot in the university courtyard and dies in the arms of Lucio Astengo, his friend and colleague. A few weeks later, Astengo vanishes mysteriously.  Flash forward to 2011. Caterina and Barbara Astengo, six and 12 when their father passed away, put up for sale their family cottage by the sea, which has long since been abandoned. The house is filled with memories of a childhood interrupted by the father's disappearance, a broken family that never reassembled. In one corner, there's an old phone still attached to the outlet. Caterina picks it up and discovers that, inexplicably, it works, even though the line is disconnected. Playfully, she dials her home number from 30 years earlier and hears the voice of a child responding on the other end. In shock, she realizes that she is speaking to her 12-year-old self, a week before the death of her father. She's been given a second chance, if not to save him then at least to uncover the truth. Wonderful performances by Margarita Buy and Nicchiarelli herself as Caterina's sister."

Dance: Polina Semionova with American Ballet Theater in Don Quixote, May 27, 2013

Found online:

"Based on Miguel de Cervantes' sweeping tale of romance and chivalry, the knight-errant of la Mancha, Don Quixote, and his devoted squire, Sancho Panza, are positively heroic when it comes to aiding the spirited maiden Kitri and her charming amour. From the bravura dancing of the fiery toreador Espada to the colorful caravan of gypsies, the stage explodes with one show-stopping performance after another in this feast of choreographic fireworks."

Here is a review from the New York Times of her performance in 2011.

Plimpton's NYC apartment - party

Film: Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself

Found online:
"Witty, sophisticated, urbane and yet a man of the people, [George Plimpton] embodied the American optimism of 1960s and '70s. He co-founded and edited one of the most influential literary magazines in history, The Paris Review for 50 years, and in the process, he innovated a writing technique called participatory journalism. This gave Plimpton a unique perspective on the activities he wrote about, perhaps most famously with Paper Lion, a bestseller, which has never left the conversation of the greatest sports books of all-time."

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/plimpton-starring-george-plimpton-as-himself

Dance: Rennie Harris Awe-inspiring Works (RHAW)

Consider me a big fan, officially, as of right now.

Rennie Harris is a living master and the performance today by his pre-professional dance company was beyond words; okay - throw at it "beautiful, exhilarating, amazing." "Awe-inspiring" is correct.  Dr. Harris (with an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Bates College) has a professional pedigree that includes the Alvin Ailey Award for Choreography, three Bessie Awards and a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship. His professional company is called "Rennie Harris Puremovement" - but today's RHAW dancers at the New Victory Theater (NYC, 5/19/13) already made the grade. I had to take a big breath at intermission to keep from crying. It was that good.

Here's the review in the New York Times.

It was especially interesting to see this hip-hop performance after recently seeing "The Spectators" by Pam Tanowitz (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/arts/dance/the-spectators-at-new-york-live-arts.html?_r=0). If you had an itemized list of features to compare the two dance programs, the RHAW hip hoppers would still be top dog for:  inventiveness, energy, formal choreographic structures, emotional connection, profound physical training and sheer joy. In addition, even though the RHAW music choices tended to be obvious, it at least helps to develop in dancers that extra bit of magic: musicality. No matter how diligently Ms. Tamowitz chips away at the ballet vocabulary, the only emotional response I heard in the audience around me was a chuckle of recognition when one dancer, with curved modern-dance spine, beat her balletic legs together. Compare this to Mr. Harris' work where the audience gasps unexpectedly again and again - and for the subtler reasons as well as the smashing big ones.

 

  http://www.rennieharrisrhaw.org

Film at MoMA: Old Dog

Kent called it "a sketch of a poem."  In Tibet: a childless couple, an old man and his dog, a policeman and a school teacher; in a setting of new town construction, grassland hills, ruins of lost villages, a pastoral simple shepherd's home; populated by sheep, goats, pigs, motorcycles, ponies, trucks and cars. A pool table is set up and played in a muddy street. An infomercial on TV shamelessly tries to sell gold jewelry to people who can barely get signal reception. What will become of the old dog?

Found online:

Old Dog

2011. China. Directed by Pema Tseden. With Yanbum Gyal, Droluma Kyab, Lochey. A young Tibetan decides to sell his family's nomad mastiff, an exotic dog that fetches a fortune from wealthy Chinese. His aging father opposes him, leading to a series of tragicomic events that threaten to tear the family apart. Pema Tseden is the leading filmmaker of a newly emerging Tibetan cinema, and the first director in China to film his movies entirely in the Tibetan language. His third feature, Old Dog employs an observational documentary approach that soberly depicts the erosion of Tibetan culture under the pressures of contemporary society. Courtesy of dGenerate/Icarus. 88 min.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/18237

Film: In the House

Found online:

Anthony Lane: "In the House" Review : The New Yorker, APRIL 29, 2013

"It seems not just against the odds but against the laws of nature that a film as bookish, as suburban, and as self-consciously clever as "In the House" should also be such fun. To make things even more unlikely, it's about a teacher, and the nearest it comes to an action sequence is when someone photocopies a math test. There is sex, of course, this being a French movie, but it's extremely brief, and, most outrageous of all, it occurs between two people who are married to each other. What, then, is the appeal?

Our unheroic hero is Germain (Fabrice Luchini), who teaches literature at the Lycée Gustave Flaubert—a first hint that the application of style, at whatever cost, will lurk at the movie's heart. Germain is married, childlessly, to Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas), who runs an art gallery. We sense an easy rapport between them; she doesn't object when he reads Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents" in bed, and she enjoys listening when he comes home and reads out his pupils' essays to her, the better to grumble about the narrowness of their minds. But wait.

One essay is by a boy named Claude (Ernst Umhauer), who recounts that he went to see Rapha (Bastien Ughetto), a fellow-pupil, ostensibly to help with math homework. As Claude admits, however, he used to stand in the park opposite Rapha's place, the previous summer, and watch; now, "at 11 a.m., I rang the bell, and the house finally opened up to me." As Germain reads out these words, he pauses, and glances up at Jeanne. Imperceptibly, with excitable stealth, the camera starts to move, approaching each of them in turn. They, like us—like every listener since the Sultan who summoned Scheherazade—are being lured into the spinning of a yarn. The process is both ominous and funny, all the more so because we gather, from sticky experience, that the yarn will turn out to be a web.

Claude has more to report. He mentions "the singular scent of a middle-class woman," which emanates from Rapha's mother, Esther (Emmanuelle Seigner). One sniff is enough. Henceforth, in pursuit of her, Claude will return repeatedly to the scene of the crime—or, at least, of his voyeuristic sins—and try to transcribe, in a series of essays, both his exploits and the flux of his feelings. On the strength of these, Germain starts to coach him after hours, at school, arguing that Claude, as a type of proto-novelist, ought to refine his powers of description. The kid is told to write more coolly, then with more passion; like Flaubert, like Dostoevsky, and so on. We find ourselves, in other words, in a late-flowering offshoot of one of the great modernist ambitions, which reached full bloom in "Ulysses": the urge to try out every conceivable style, not as a show of skill but in a bid to grasp a world so rich and multifarious that it threatens, or rejoices, to elude our clutches. Truth is stranger than diction.

All of which makes "In the House" sound less like a movie and more like a novel itself. In fact, it is directed by François Ozon, who has ranged prolifically from bright pastiche, in "8 Women" and "Potiche," to grave studies of grief and desire, like "Under the Sand" and "Time to Leave." He has flirted with literary artifice before, in "Angel," but the result rang strangely and determinedly false. In the new film, though, his tuning is exact, his actors miss not a trick, and, without our really noticing, his story dances along at a rattling rate. Ozon, like Pedro Almodóvar, is too wise to look down on melodrama, and some of Claude's incursions into Rapha's family are pricked with unabashed suspense—helped by the shyly smiling Umhauer, whose performance as Claude lies within stroking distance of devilry, with the cheekbones to match.

Luchini makes the ideal foil, for, as Germain, he clings to the softest of delusions—the idea that, if you've read enough books, you are cushioned against the shocks of body and soul, and are obviously too astute to wind up as a dupe. Eyes widening behind his glasses, he digs himself irretrievably deep into the fates of the other characters, and lets go of his own. The most urgent debt here is to "Céline and Julie Go Boating," the Jacques Rivette film in which two young women keep entering a house of mystery and staggering out again, a while later, as if high on pure narrative. As for Ozon's final image, it nods in glowing tribute to "Rear Window." The house of fiction, as Henry James said, has many windows, front as well as rear, and "In the House" stares through just one of them, at a minor crisis in the life of the bourgeoisie. Yet the view it affords is at once so silvery-clear and so misted with longing and confusion that, unexpectedly, it draws us close to heartache. Germain is a hero of sorts, by the end, because he has the courage to lose everything to our unhealable human sickness: the need to know. "

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2013/04/29/130429crci_cinema_lane?mobify=0

Theater: The Caucasian Chalk Circle, 5/11/13

From the web: http://www.classicstage.org/season/chalkcircle/

By BERTOLT BRECHT
New Music by DUNCAN SHEIK
Directed by BRIAN KULICK
"Terrible is the temptation to do good!" warns Bertolt Brecht's amiable narrator. But good is all that Grusha, the simple kitchen maid, knows. And so, in the midst of a revolution, she cannot help but come to the aid of a poor defenseless infant. Their subsequent misadventures across her war-torn country become the heart of Brecht's playful parable, which calls into question our basic assumptions of right in a world that has gone wrong. This production boasts a new score and new songs by acclaimed singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik and is helmed by CSC Artistic Director Brian Kulick, who directed last season's sold-out production of Brecht's GALILEO.
 
JASON BABINSKY, ELIZABETH A. DAVIS, TOM RIIS FARRELL, ALEX HURT, CHRISTOPHER LLOYD, DEB RADLOFF, MARY TESTA
Scenic Design TONY STRAIGES
Costume Design ANITA YAVICH
Lighting Design JUSTIN TOWNSEND
Sound Design MATT KRAUS

Music: Violinist Benjamin Beilman, Merkin Hall, May 7, 2013

Music:  Violinist Benjamin Beilman, Merkin Hall, May 7, 2013

Artists: Yekwon Sunwoo (Piano); Benjamin Beilman (Violin)

Poulenc: Sonata for Violin and Piano

Brahms: Sonata for Violin and Piano no 2 in A major, Op. 100

Messiaen: Fantasie for Violin and Piano

Schubert: Fantasy for Violin and Piano in C major, D 934/Op. posth. 159

http://benjaminbeilman.instantencore.com/m/home.aspx

Music: Attacca Quartet, May 7, 2013

Amy Schroeder – Violin
Luke Fleming – Viola
Keiko Tokunaga – Violin
Andrew Yee – Cello

Alice Tully Hall Recital – New York, NY

The 20th Annual Lisa Arnhold Memorial Concert

Program:

Haydn: String Quartet No. 55 in D major, Op. 71 no. 2

Bartók: String Quartet No. 6, Sz. 114 (1939)

Intermission

Dvořák: String Quartet No. 13 in G major, Op. 106

CUFF Film 2013: That F***ing Elevator

	That Fucking Elevator 8 min  Written and Directed by Jim Garvey Produced by Lindsay Tolbert

CUFF Film 2013: Above the Sea

	Above the Sea 17 min  Written and Directed by Keola Racela Produced by Lily Niu

CUFF Film 2013: Made in Chinatown

Made in Chinatown 17 min  Directed by Kevin Lau Written by Kevin Lau, Nyssa Chow Produced by Javian Le, Amanda Garque

CUFF Film 2013: Sweet Corn

Written and Directed by Joo Hyun Lee

Produced by Jaeung Yii, Yong Jae Park

Puppetry Theater: Le Clan des Songes in "Fragile"

From the web:
"In FRAGILE, a wordless work of magical puppet theater, a charming Chaplinesque compagnon finds that the road on which he travels curves and changes—and also happens to wobble, wiggle, droop and tease. With only his can-do spirit and a suitcase, our earnest French friend shows us that pluck and resilience can make marvelous adventures out of irksome obstacles. The company’s stunningly simple puppetry is set to enchanting original music, gently introducing a world that is as human and realistic as it is dreamy and whimsical."

Below is a picture I took of Peppito with Marina Montefusco, his creator-director-playwright. She leads the ensemble named Le Clan des Songes. "Fragile" is a perfect example of the potential of "small" - here, a very small ensemble of creatives (3 puppeteers and a composer) of high integrity have produced a perfect piece of theater. Focused. Inventive. Emotional. Bravo! Sending appreciation to the various French cultural services for collaborating to bring this ensemble to NYC in 2013.

Dance: The Royal Ballet of Cambodia, BAM, NYC, May 2, 2013

As Princess Buppha Devi explained during her interview and introduction to traditional Cambodian dance (April 30th at NYPL for the Performing Arts), the dancers are "performing for the deceased" and their movements are dignified to be "in harmony with the gods." Tonight I saw the company perform "The Legend of Apsara Mera."  The dancers were scintillating in their glittering costumes, performing with myriad and minute gestural detail in a landscape of slow motion, balance and restraint.  They reminded me of stars in a night sky: an alignment of flickering lights moving slowly across a field of space and time, invested profoundly with significance but distant from human emotions or needs.  - dp

Music: Orchestra for the Next Century, Merkin Hall, NYC, April 30, 2013

STRAVINSKY: Concerto in D for String Orchestra *

MARGARET BROUWER: Violin Concerto (NY Premiere)

        Michi Wiancko, Violin Soloist

PAUL MORAVEC: Morph, for String Orchestra

MARTINŮ: Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano & Timpani*

        Yael Manor, Piano

http://orchestranextcentury.org/PAUL_SACHER_CONCERT.html

Tough Cookie Dance

We saw two brief but brilliant dances by the Tough Cookie Dance Co. this past weekend in Brooklyn. Looking forward greatly to their next big show, October 18-19, 2013. https://www.facebook.com/toughcookiedance

Documentary Film: The Oath

Description found online:
Two men who were part of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network look back on their past with strongly mixed feelings in this documentary from director Laura Poitras. Before the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., made Osama bin Laden and his jihad against the West known to nearly every American, Abu Jandal was one of bin Laden's bodyguards, and he helped recruit Salim Hamdan, who served as bin Laden's personal driver. Jandal was able to escape prosecution and fled to Yemen, where he now makes a living driving a taxi. Jandal still regards America as a sworn enemy, but also views his days in Al-Qaeda with little nostalgia, and he anticipates no hopeful future before him. Jandal also feels deep regret over the fate of Hamdan, who ended up in the United States military prison at Guantanamo Bay and was tried as a terrorist, despite his insistence he was bin Laden's chauffeur and nothing more. Hamdan's family and legal team struggle on his behalf without any illusions about his likely fate, and when Jandal speaks out to the press in his old friend's defense, Hamdan sends him a sharply worded letter asking him to stop. The Oath was an official selection at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10012282-oath/

Music Lecture: Bobby Sanabria & Quarteto Ache

A introduction to the rhythms of Latin music and the introduction of Latin/African/Jazz music in NYC during the 20th century. Two of note: the 5 beats of "shave and a haircut - two bits" and the very fast triplet which is clapped (or accented on drums) on 2, 3.

A large migration in the 1920's of Puerto Ricans, who had been listening to more developed radio programs from Cuba, arrived in NYC and lived in Harlem/East Harlem. American-born musicians also were influenced and became stars of the genre, like Tito Puente.

"American Sabor: From the Palladium to the Bronx" on April 17, 2013 at the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts.

Music: The Harlem Quartet

The Harlem Quartet performed three pieces by three composers at Merkin Hall (Tuesday April 16, 2013).

First: A sleep-inducing Mozart String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K. 421. It would have been a beautiful piece to take a nap with. The Merkin Hall staff had forgotten to turn on the air conditioning, so it might not have been Mozart's fault. We folded inward as Mozart's delicate phrases repeated and danced around us.

With the air finally turned on, The Adventures of Hippocrates by Chick Corea was a delight. A perfect example of what young listeners must be enjoying in contemporary re-imaginings of classical music.

The last piece was Franz Schubert's Quartet No. 14 in D minor "Death and the Maiden," D. 810. Intricate, dramatic and intriguing -- and only a little but like death or a maiden.

Film: Creative Nonfiction

So maybe this is an acquired taste.  But I want Lena Dunham.  "Lena, You dazzle me with your audacity."  I want her to become as famous as Woody Allen.  I want her to have her own TV show.  Until further notice, I am a fan. -dp

This description from the web:

Creative Nonfiction

"2009. USA. Directed by Lena Dunham. Before Girls and Tiny Furniture there was Creative Nonfiction, a funny and formally ambitious metafictional account about writing and non-romance at a liberal arts school. Dunham, a 2009 New Face, stars. 59 min."

Also this description:

"A young woman purposefully blurs the lines between fiction and real life in this independent comedy drama. Ella (Lena Dunham) is a college student who is edging into a relationship with Chris (David Unger), a sweet but nerdy guy who lives in her dorm. Ella can scarcely take her mind off Chris, even though they both feel uncomfortable acknowledging that they're boyfriend and girlfriend, which means she's been neglecting the screenplay that's supposed to be her semester project for a writing class. Stuck for ideas, Ella begins acting out the story that she's roughed out for the script, and as she spends more time impersonating a disturbed high school student having an obsessive relationship with her teacher, life and art start to merge in strange and unexpected ways. Creative Nonfiction was the first feature film for writer, director and star Lena Dunham, and was chosen as an official selection at the 2009 South by Southwest Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi"

Film: Medicine for Melancholy

Written and directed by Barry Jenkins, this is an exquisite movie. From the first scenes of visual storytelling, you feel the hand of a master at work. The romantic drama slowly and purposefully builds using minimalist dialogue and intensely intimate camera work. Private, personal melancholy (a broken romance) is deftly interlaced with historic issues of blackness/slavery and contemporary issues of San Francisco housing problems. Each issue, on its own, would be enough to elicit melancholy. For our main character Micah, sexual tension and anger rest only a scratch beneath actor Wyatt Cenac's beatific grin and loveable sense of humor.

The acting is sophisticated and satisfying. Brilliant camera work and unusual colored lenses also make this a movie I'll want to watch again. Bravo. -dp

This description from the web:
"Fate (and alcohol) brings two people together in this independent romantic comedy-drama. Joanne (Tracey Heggins) and Micah (Wyatt Cenac) wake up together one morning after a drunken one-night stand, the result of attending a late-night party at the home of a mutual friend. It becomes clear they don't know each other very well and after sharing breakfast, Joanne isn't interested in getting to know Micah any better."

Music: The Attacca String Quartet plays Haydn 4/11/13

What is a Haydn string quartet?

I decided this:

Haydn is present as an aural representation of intellect and breath.

The structure is repetition, variation and surprise.

The performers are in a matrix of discovery, drama, support and balance.

It is also an intricate lace created from four colored strands; a living history.

Film: In Another Country

 Isabelle Huppert stars in this fractured fairy tale about 1, 2, and then 3 French women who arrive in Korea to fulfill the imagined story-lines of a young writer's fantasy world.

It is a study in acting as Ms. Huppert savors filmic moments of odd or uncomfortable situations. The script proceeds cohesively through each of the three scenarios, offering the audience enough visual material to find their own connections between scenes and across scenarios.

Termed "a comedy" overall, there is still plenty of meat to chew on: the idolization of the foreigner, the rules of fidelity and infidelity, the willingness to dupe another, the poignancy of aging. -dp

 A preview is available here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1989712/

Theater: Utsuyo Kakuryo

"Passing By the Other Shore"

From the HERE web site:

Samurai Sword Soul 10th Anniversary Performance is a mix of samurai drama, Bunraku-style puppetry, contemporary dance, video projection, and exciting samurai sword fighting. In this multimedia performance of spirits and characters, projections and puppets, ninjas and wanderers, the story unfolds with humor, love, revenge, and life-or-death decisions. In Japanese and English, with English subtitles projected.

Samurai Sword Soul is the only Japanese sword fighting theater company in New York. The company has been performing extensively for major festivals, events and TV shows since 2003, and is well-known for its exciting and elaborating fighting choreography.
 

Credits

Producer: Yoshi Amao

Director and Fighting Choreographer: Yoshihisa Kuwayama

Dance Choreographer: Takemi Kitamura

Video Designer: Hazuki Aikawa & Andrey Alistratov (Noka Productions)

Lighting Designer: Tsubasa Kamei

Sound Designer and Live Musician: Seiichiro Koizumi

Performers: Yoshi Amao, Yoshihisa Kuwayama, Takemi Kitamura, Koji Nishiyama, Harunobu Sugita, Akira Ito, Lisa Itabashi, Sachi Tanaka, Yu- Taniguchi, Umihei, Sandy Chase, Jiro Ueno, Asuka Morinaga, Shibata Mariko and Natsuko Hayashi

 

Photo by Motoyuki Ishibashi.