WASHINGTON, D.C. | Tonight, July 8, a young D.C. troupe will screen a film that documents that making of its new dance/theatre project Trust by the German writer/director Falk Richter. The courageous company force/collision has been in search of a dance vocabulary that suits Richter’s virulently comic attack on consumer capitalism. I saw an early work-in-progress performance … Continue reading »
Filed under Reviews …
Performance review | Diverse City Theater’s nervy revival of Lee Blessing’s “Two Rooms” gives voice to voiceless
Diverse City Theater’s nervy production argues that Two Rooms has not lost an inch of topical relevance. The play has not lost its eloquence. It is a muted cry of rage. Continue reading »
Performance review | Is “Pâquerette” penetrating, or merely a dance with penetrating elements?
Pâquerette is a duet between a man and a woman who re-discover their childlike innocence through the intensities of penetration. Continue reading »
Not a performance review | French choreographer David Wampach spoofs John Waters film, dances with shaving foam
“Auto + Batterie” matches up two enticing signature works, in which French choreographer David Wampach conspicuously foregrounds the theatrical relationship between dance and music. Continue reading »
Performance review (NSFW) | Italy’s Ricci/Forte serves up queer fantasia in “Macadamia Nut Brittle”
Macadamia Nut Brittle is excoriating, sexy, hallucinatory, viciously funny. The plot steals from the mode of a reality-TV show, but its stance is subversive and punk. As the noisy evening unfolds, Ricci/Forte detonates, again and again and again, the illusory logic of this TV genre Continue reading »
Performance review | Seeing the Romanian Cultural Institute’s “Window” through Alice’s looking glass
The Window is a unique theatrical experience, because enigma is a principal aspect of its charms. An inspiring two-part site-specific performance-design project created and directed by Ana Mărgineanu for the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York (RCINY), The Window asks you to pay close attention if you happen to stroll by RCINY’s storefront spaces. Continue reading »
Performance review: Watch a storefront story from a New York sidewalk in this Romanian-American collaboration
“The Window” succeeds in its creative transformation of an otherwise nondescript building space that is normally used as a bookstore, a reception area or a meeting place. If you did know that there is a Romanian consulate and cultural services in that corner of the neighborhood, you definitely will remember that piece of information the next time you pass by. Continue reading »
Transvestite cabaret blossoms in “Gardenia,” a dance-theater work from Belgium
MONCLAIR, N.J.: Think of it as a Follies for the third gender. Or La Cage aux Folles as re-dressed by Pina Bausch. A dance-theater piece from Belgium, Gardenia conjures the closing night of a transvestite cabaret in Barcelonia where seven middle-aged men (between 55 and 65 years old) recall their double lives as cross-dressing movie stars and as … Continue reading »
My picks for the world’s best theater of 2011
My picks for the world’s top-10 best theater reflects my travels in 2011 and is therefore deeply personal. Continue reading »
“Macbeth After Shakespeare” (Slovenia/Croatia) muscles its way into brilliance
A collaboration between Mini Teater Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Novokazalište Zagreb (Croatia), director Ivica Buljan’s Macbeth After Shakespeare forces us to viscerally come face to face with the naked and overbearing fact that the pornography of power is both beautiful and disturbing to look at. It seduces and repels and provokes. Continue reading »
Report from Sarajevo: An inspiring international festival rises above a “catastrophic state of culture” in Bosnia and Herzegovina
As confusion over arts funding drags on in Bosnia and Herzegovina, how inspiring it is to discover in Sarajevo an artistically rich international theater festival that serves as another point of light shining over that country’s darkened horizon Continue reading »
Theater Review: In “Ghost Light,” a son confronts historical ghosts, family myths and dark dreams
In Ghost Light, San Francisco history itself is a ghost machine, and every performance is a nightly haunting that serves to re-construct the recent past through the memories of an American witness who is still living among us. Continue reading »
Theater Review: “Unnatural Acts” by the Plastic Theater at Classic Stage Company in NYC
NEW YORK CITY: On Sunday, July 31, Unnatural Acts will complete an incredible run at Classic Stage Company (CSC) where this exemplary show has been extended three times. Most Off-Broadway shows in New York City announce a limited run when they open. If it were not for the amazing audience demand and CSC’s nimble ability to re-jigger … Continue reading »
Movie Review: Theatre Svoboda, a documentary film by Jakub Hejna
THEATRE SVOBODA (DIVADLO SVOBODA) Czech Republic, 2011 98 Min, Color DIRECTOR: Jakub Hejna PRODUCER: Jiří Konečný SCREENPLAY: Jakub Hejna, Barbora Příhodová DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Jiří Chod CAST Josef Svoboda EDITOR Jakub Hejna MUSIC Anthony Phillips The most riveting scene of Theatre Svoboda — the feature-length documentary film about the famous Czech scenographer Josef Svoboda — takes place … Continue reading »