Articles
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EgoPo's "Artaud Unbound'
A beautiful (but damaged) mind
The mission of theater, said the French actor/playwright Antonin Artaud, is to create unforgettable moments of truth. He wound up in a straitjacket, and forgotten to boot. EgoPo's four playlets help rescue a brilliant theatrical figure from obscurity.
Artaud Unbound. Four plays by Antonin Artaud, directed by Lane Savadove, Brenna Geffers, Matt Wright and Michael Alltop. EgoPo Theater production ended February 20, 2011 at the Latvian Society, 531 N. Seventh St. (800) 595-4849 or www.egopo.org.
Articles
3 minute read
Picasso's Guitars at MOMA in New York
Picasso at the moment of creation
In a small and intimate exhibit in New York, Picasso's flimsy and ephemeral guitar inventions make a powerful statement about his constant search for new and lasting forms and ideas.
Articles
2 minute read
London Symphony plays Mahler's Seventh
Mahler's ugly duckling
Mahler's Seventh Symphony is one of the most rarely performed of his scores, in part because it lacks (or eschews) the overall dynamic structure of his more popular works. But it's a satisfying work in the right interpretive hands, and Valery Gergiev was at least intermittently successful in it with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Articles
5 minute read
McDonagh's "The Lieutenant of Inishmore' (1st review)
When things get out of hand
Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore concerns what happens when a disagreement mushrooms into mindless violence beyond anyone's control. And it asks the audience an uncomfortable question: Why are we laughing?
Articles
3 minute read
Adam Rapp's "Hallway Trilogy' in New York
Grungy, grungier and grungiest
A Lower East Side hallway set in the past, present and future is the site of three plays by the allegedly daring Adam Rapp. The net result is five hours of sloppy, empty playwriting and schlock shock tactics, signifying nothing.
Articles
5 minute read
Strauss's "Arabella' at AVA
Memo to Richard Strauss: Less is more
Richard Strauss wrote operas for big orchestras, but this intimate production on a tiny stage, with just a piano for accompaniment, enabled some of Arabella's long overlooked qualities to emerge.
Articles
3 minute read
Higdon, Hahn and Curtis (2nd review)
The poet returns to her incubator
What makes Curtis Institute one of the world's great music schools? Jennifer Higdon's Violin Concerto, written for her former Curtis student Hilary Hahn, is a touching portrait of the relationship between a powerful talent and the unique institution that nurtured her.
Articles
4 minute read
"Diary of a Madman' in Brooklyn
A genius for portraying madness
Geoffrey Rush, who seems to have cornered the market on inspired lunacy, has done it again. This time he's Aksenty Poprishchin, Gogol's immortal definitive urban "little man," driven mad by an uncaring world. Rush and director Neil Armfield have turned the story into a tragic vaudeville, both hilarious and harrowing, acted out with spectacular theatricality.
Articles
5 minute read
Jurowski conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra
A night of musical heroics
This stellar Philadelphia Orchestra concert, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski and including a stunning rendition of the Beethoven Violin Concerto by Lisa Batiashvili, ennobled the Classical repertoire as few concerts do.
Articles
3 minute read
"The Last Five Years' at Media Theatre.
Anatomy of a breakup
The Last Five Years is a two-character musical about a couple's romance, based on its creator's own wrecked marriage. It's a triumph of style over substance, thanks especially to excellent performances by Jennie Eisenhower and Marcus Stevens.
Articles
3 minute read