Theater: A Taste of Honey

From the web site: http://www.pearltheatre.org/production/a-taste-of-honey/

In 1959 at age 18, playwright Shelagh Delaney rocked the theatre world with a play that both defined and defied her generation.  A Taste of Honey is the clever, passionate, and poignant story of a young woman facing an uncertain future in a hostile world—and learning to trust that love, in its every heartbreaking and messy form, will see her through.

“Delaney was only 18 when she wrote this story of a complex mother-daughter relationship challenged and defined by a world of poverty, gender inequality, racism, and sexual identity. The play asks deep questions, but does so  with humor and optimism. Delaney mixes hyper-realistic details of life in England’s poorest industrial towns in the late 1950s with a dose of meta-theatrical emotional exploration through music—the play incorporates a live jazz band that the actors are (sort of) aware of.

It’s a tender story of a young woman trying to engage with a much larger and more complex world than the one she’s grown up in—in many ways, far more than Osborne’s Look Back in Anger of the same time period, Delaney anticipates the social questions of the 1960s and sets her heroine on the path to answer them”

– From Kate Farrington, Director of Education and Dramaturgy

by SHELAGH DELANEY
directed by AUSTIN PENDLETON

Rebekah Brockman
John Evans Reese
Rachel Botchan
Bradford Cover
Ade Otukoya

Review: http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/theater-reviews/2016/09/30/theater-review---a-taste-of-honey-.html

Dance: Figure a Sea by Deborah Hay

The review: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/arts/dance/review-deborah-hay-peak-performances-montclair-state.html?_r=0&referer=https://www.google.com/

Dance: Maria Hassabi: Staged at The Kitchen, NYC

http://thekitchen.org/event/maria-hassabi-staged

My impressions: 

Slow

Tense

Deeply sad

Beautiful

Music: Momenta Festival II at TENRI

Thursday, September 29, 2016

An Interval of Infinity
Curator: Alex Shiozaki, violin // Guest Artist: Nana Shi, piano

Joji Yuasa: Solitude — in Memoriam T.T. (1997)
Somei Satoh: Birds in warped time II (1980)
Toru Takemitsu: A Way a Lone (1980)
Akira Nishimura: Sonata II, “Trance Medium” (2005)
Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 15 in F Major, op. 135 (1826)

Tenri Cultural Institute
43A West 13th St.
New York, NY

http://www.momentaquartet.com/

Theater: What Did You Expect?

From the Public Theater web site: http://www.publictheater.org/en/Public-Theater-Season/Gabriels-What-Did-You-Expect/

Tony winning writer and director Richard Nelson (The Apple Family Plays, James Joyce’s The Dead) returns to The Public this fall with the second play in his new three-play cycle, The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family.

WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? brings us back to the kitchen of the Gabriel family, with the country now in the midst of the general election for President. In the course of one evening in the house they grew up in, history (both theirs and our country's), money, politics, family, art and culture are chopped up and mixed together, while a meal is made around the kitchen table.

From left: Meg Gibson, Lynn Hawley, Roberta Maxwell, Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders, Amy Warren

World Premiere Three-Play Cycle
THE GABRIELS: Election Year in the Life of One Family
Play Two: WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?
Written and Directed by Richard Nelson
Featuring Meg Gibson, Lynn Hawley, Roberta Maxwell, Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders, Amy Warren

Scenic Designers Susan Hilferty and Jason Ardizzone-West
Costume Designer Susan Hilferty
Lighting Designer Jennifer Tipton
Sound Designers Scott Lehrer and Will Pickens
Production Stage Manager Theresa Flanagan

.....
My notes on the play:

To know that the tragedy is in your hands to be delivered, but to soften the blow by adding the details.
Something is being revealed while something else is intentionally hidden.
The man had a sexy voice and a trusting face.
The eternal optimist says: Things get better.
The famous psychiatrist says: The people who are ill are brave, they should be regarded as heroes.
Some will always seek to know who they are, where they belong, why they are different.
The parents sat on a bench and wept after dropping their child off at college.
In mourning for the deceased, the worst moment is the one when your senses fool you to believe that the deceased is alive and near you again - and this trick of your senses is swiftly crushed by reality.
The quiet grief is unspoken: the notes of the song which the siblings all learned to play on the family piano; Richard's piano students and the dire necessity to sell the piano.  - dp

Theater: The Hunger

From the web site: http://www.bam.org/opera/2016/the-hunger

OPERA
By Donnacha Dennehy
Alarm Will Sound
Conducted by Alan Pierson
Directed by Tom Creed

Presented in association with Irish Arts Center

Part of 2016 Next Wave Festival
Underdog history comes to life through new music and old Irish songs in composer Donnacha Dennehy’s opera about the Great Famine of 1845-52, rooted in Asenath Nicholson’s harrowing first-person account in Annals of the Famine in Ireland. Featuring acclaimed ensemble Alarm Will Sound (Nonesuch Records at BAM, 2014 Next Wave) and celebrated Irish folk singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, The Hunger imagines soprano Katherine Manley as Nicholson and Ó Lionáird as the voice of the voiceless, with instrumentalists integrated into the staging. Old recordings of traditional sean-nós songs dovetail seamlessly with Dennehy’s score, while video clips of interviews with Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman, and others underscore the political roots of this tragedy that brought a nation to its knees.

PROGRAM NOTES
Set and video design by Jim Findlay

Co-produced by Alarm Will Sound and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Commissioned by Alarm Will Sound with additional funding from Arts Council of Ireland, MAP Fund, The Sinquefield Charitable Foundation, and New Music USA

Theater: Songs of Lear

From the BAM web site: http://www.bam.org/theater/2016/songs-of-lear

THEATER
Song of the Goat Theatre (Teatr Piesn Kozla)
Directed by Grzegorz Bral


Part of 2016 Next Wave Festival
Gathered in a semicircle on a bare stage, 10 women and men weave a frenzied tapestry of raw physicality and emotion: a Corsican chant wailed to the ocean, the visceral howl of funereal grief. Distilling Shakespeare’s great tragedy to its essence, Polish troupe Song of the Goat Theatre and director Grzegorz Bral make their BAM debut with the breathtaking song cycle Songs of Lear, a favorite among critics and audiences alike at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. King Lear’s storm of the soul—madness, despair, disappointment, love—becomes a feverish deluge of polyphonic sound, as these formidable vocalists harness the sheer power of the human body, voice, and spirit.

LANGUAGE
In Polish, English, and Latin

The review in the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/theater/review-songs-of-lear-we-hear-cordelia-singing.html

Theater, Forced Entertainment: Tomorrow’s Parties

"Two performers marooned under a string of carnival lights invite you to crash the end of a good party—or maybe it’s the end of the world—as they serve the audience with their wildest predictions and deepest fears about the future. From magical realism to science fiction, utopia to apocalypse, they offer a poignant and comic look at contemporary life."

US Premiere
Wed, Sep 28, Fri, Sep 30, and Sat, Oct 1
at 7:30pm

FIAF Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th Street, NYC

https://crossingthelinefestival.org/events/forced-entertainment/

From the review by Lyn Gardner @  https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/oct/24/tomorrows-parties-theatre-review

Like much of this company's best work, it is built around lists and statements, and is based on the very simplest of ideas. Two performers stand side by side on a stage that is bare – bar a skein of multicoloured fairground lights – and take it in turns to speculate on what the future could bring. 

Every proposition is responded to by another statement that offers a different possible version of the future. So a world ruled over by a single government is pitted against one operating on a primitive feudal system. Eating meat will be barbaric – or alternatively everyone will have become cannibals. 

This is a challenging piece, and you have to allow yourself to be seduced by its quiet rhythms and wry asides. It operates as a kind of talisman, as if by imagining the very worst we can stop it from happening. But there is a touch, too, of JG Ballard's call to the power of the imagination "to remake the world" and "hold back the night". 

Tomorrow's Parties is both unbearably sad and absurdly optimistic, as it projects further and further into an unknown future and points out the fragile insignificance of our lives.

Theater: Summer Shorts 2016: Series B at 59E59

From the NYTimes review by LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES AUG. 7, 2016 

“The Dark Clothes of Night,” though, pops and fizzes with one quick-change delight after another, and it’s the kind of fun that can happen only onstage. With a terrific cast of three, it cuts between the detective-movie world of the private eye Burke Sloane (Dana Watkins) — where femmes fatales are plentiful and clever wordplay is the native tongue — and the more pedestrian life of Rob Marlowe (also Mr. Watkins), a film professor whose marriage is giving out.

For the full review, and more about the other pieces on this program, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/theater/review-a-femme-fatale-a-private-eye-and-dorm-mates-at-summer-shorts.html?_r=0

New Frank Zappa Doc Wows at Sundance 2016 - Rolling Stone

'Eat That Question'

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/new-frank-zappa-doc-wows-at-sundance-2016-20160126


Sent from my iPhone

Review: ‘Men on Boats’ Blurs Genders in Recalling John Wesley Powell’s Expedition - NYTimes.com

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/theater/review-men-on-boats-blurs-genders-in-recalling-john-wesley-powells-expedition.html

Film Forum · UNDER THE SUN

http://filmforum.org/film/under-the-sun-film

Despite continuous interference by government handlers, director Vitaly Mansky still manages to document life in Pyongyang, capital city of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, in this fascinating portrait of one girl and her parents in the year that Zin-mi prepares to join the Korean Children's Union on the 'Day Of The Shining Star' (Kim Jong-Il's birthday). As the family receives instruction on how to be the ideal patriots, Mansky's watchful camera captures details his handlers might prefer left unseen, from comrades struggling to stay awake during an official event to Zin-mi's tears at a particularly grueling dance lesson.

Rating: NR
Genre: Documentary
Directed By: Vitaliy Manskiy
Written By: Vitaliy Manskiy
In Theaters: Jul 6, 2016  Limited
On DVD: Sep 20, 2016
Box Office: $75,686.00
Runtime: 106 minutes
Studio: Vertov Studio

Film: P.S. Jerusalem, Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2016

http://www.filmlinc.org/films/ps-jerusalem/

Directed By Danae Elon

Danae Elon began filming her three young sons the moment she and her partner Philip chose to leave New York City and return to Jerusalem. The decision was prompted by the death of her father, leading Israeli intellectual and writer Amos Elon, whose dying wish was that Danae never go back. But her attachment to the place proves stronger, and on the journey there, Danae’s camera captures her boys growing up, asking endless questions and confronting the reality around them, while the place she once called “home” challenges her relationship with Philip and the future of her children. Through the prism of parenthood, P.S. Jerusalem exposes a complex and painful portrait of Jerusalem today.

“It’s a great film. It makes a compelling point about the difficulties of finding one’s place, identity, co-existence, and how fractured Jerusalem is. The coverage of settlements, home demolitions and confiscations, and ethnic displacement sends a strong message and highlights human-rights violations.” – Sari Bashi, Israel/Palestine director, Middle East and North Africa Division

Film: When Two Worlds Collide, Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2016

http://www.filmlinc.org/films/when-two-worlds-collide/

What happens when the thirst for power and riches takes priority over human life? The Amazon Rainforest, one of the planet’s most valuable natural resources, is being auctioned off, and its people condemned. Alberto Pizango, a young indigenous leader fighting to make the voices of indigenous Peruvians heard, stands up to politicians and is accused of conspiracy and inciting violence. Set against the backdrop of a global recession and climate crisis, When Two Worlds Collide, winner of a World Cinema Documentary special jury prize for Best Debut Feature at Sundance, reveals the human side to the battle of conflicting visions and political wills working to shape the future of the Amazon, and of an already debilitated global ecosystem.

Directed By Heidi Brandenburg, Matthew Orzel  2016 Peru Spanish with English subtitles 103 minutes

Film: The Crossing, Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2016

http://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-crossing/

A first-hand account of the perilous journey made by a group of Syrian refugees. Fleeing war and persecution; traversing land and sea on an old fishing boat manned by smugglers, the nail-biting trek leads to Europe, where the refugees learn that the hardest part still lies ahead. Each must battle to stay sane and create an identity among the maze of regulations and refugee hostels. Months of uncertainty and waiting and living in one center after another takes a toll on their spirits, as they confront what being a “refugee” means and try to rekindle the greatest thing they have lost—hope. The Crossing takes us along on one of the most dangerous journeys of our time, and shows the lengths to which people go to find safety and forge their own destiny.

Directed By George Kurian

Film: Almost Sunrise, Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2016

http://www.filmlinc.org/films/almost-sunrise/

Suicide among military veterans has reached epidemic proportions and is often the result of what mental-health professionals call “moral injury”—lasting wounds to the soul caused by participation in events that go against one’s deeply held sense of right and wrong. Two young veterans, haunted by their own combat experiences, take a 2,700-mile trek on foot across America seeking redemption, acceptance, and a way to close the moral chasm opened by war. This intimate, vérité film documents their journey and the healing lessons they learn along the way.

Directed By Michael Collins  2016 USA

Film: Sonita, Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2016

Winner of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary, Sonita is about a determined and animated Afghan teen living in Tehran, who dreams of being a famous rapper. But in Iran, the government doesn’t let girls sing solo. And in her Afghan home she is expected to become a teenage bride. With her family keen to marry her off to receive her dowry, tradition bears down on Sonita. Armed with nothing but passion and persistence, she must turn obstacle into opportunity.
Courtesy of Women Make Movies - Closing Night in New York

Film: Starless Dreams, Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2016

From the web site: http://www.filmlinc.org/films/starless-dreams/

Starless Dreams Trailer final from Siavash Jamali on Vimeo.

Murder, drug addiction, hijacking cars, running away from home: these are just a few of the crimes that the girls from the rehabilitation center for juvenile delinquents in Tehran have committed. After fighting the Iranian authorities for seven years, director Mehrdad Oskouei was finally granted permission to film an imprisoned population, otherwise hidden from the public eye. The result is an incredibly personal documentary about the dreams, nightmares, and hopes of the 18-year-olds in this all-female facility. Their individual stories show their desire to return to freedom and live normal lives, but also the fear of what is waiting for them on the outside. Starless Dreams won prizes at the Berlinale, Full Frame, and the True/False Film Fest.

• Directed By Mehrdad Oskouei 
 
• 2016
 
• Iran
 
• Farsi with English subtitles
 
• 76 minutes

Film: The Uncondemned, Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2016

From the web site: http://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-uncondemned/

Both a real-life courtroom thriller and a moving human drama, The Uncondemned tells the gripping story of a group of young lawyers and activists who fought In Rwanda to have rape recognized as a war crime. Between the ages of 27 and 34, making up international criminal law as they went along, they probably had no business leading the first genocide trial in history, but there was no one else to do it. Even their decision to tie sexual violence into the charges—the case at hand involved a small-potatoes mayor who hadn’t raped anyone himself—was something no one was sure would stick. But when three women came forward to testify in the hopes of winning justice for the crimes committed against them, the result was a crucial trial that changed the world of criminal justice forever.

• Directed By Michele Mitchell, Nick Louvel 
 
• 2015
• USA/Congo/Netherlands/Rwanda
 
• English, French, and Kinyarwanda with English subtitles
 
• 82 minutes

https://youtu.be/TKGFWAT2WME

Radiant Vermin at 59E59 Theaters

RADIANT VERMIN

By Philip Ridley

Directed by David Mercatali

With Debra Baker, Scarlett Alice Johnson, and Sean Michael Verey

Ollie and Jill want to tell you about their dream home. Some of the things they did to get it, you might find... shocking. But they want you to know they did it all for their baby.

http://www.59e59.org/moreinfo.php?showid=245