Essays on Politics Page 344

As just about everyone knows by now, Peter Sellars directed radical productions of Mozart’s three operas to librettos by da Ponte at the Pepsico Summerfare Festival in Purchase, N.Y. during the latter half of the ’80s. Everyone knows about these productions because, by setting The Marriage of Figaro in Trump Tower, Don Giovanni on a…

Sitting in the Citicorp gallery next to Manhattan’s St. Peter’s Church, where she is directing five operas for the multicultural Magic Circle Opera Repertory Company, Alaskan-born theatre artist Jane Lind wears shoulder-length earrings made by a cousin from red bugle beads signifying life, surrounded by black beads for protection. “My people always make sure that…

As you drive north out of Boston on I-93, the changes begin. Skyscrapers fall away; motels and multiplex theatres thin out and are replaced by trees and windswept sky. By the time you reach the two-lane macadam of Route 128 and turn southeast, you might be anywhere in New England. Only when 128 spills into…

Describing avant-garde theatre to uninitiated readers is a daunting task. Providing plot summary and character description is often of little use since so much experimental work lacks not only a linear narrative spine, but also psychologically coherent and analyzable characters. Even more daunting than reporting on a finished performance is the attempt to document its…

With the clang of a bell, the sideshow barker turns a few heads his way; his masked companion, dressed in black from head to tattooed shins, turns a few more. Before those glances have a chance to stray, the barker launches into a convivial if not-yet-up-to-speed litany of marvels awaiting the curious, the intrepid, even…

Across the north-south gulf that separates the two Americas, a pair of small ensemble theatre companies – one American, one Chilean – recently met in Bethlehem, Pa. to explore the possibilities of recognizing and synthesizing their differences. Bethlehem’s Touchstone Theatre and Santiago’s Teatro la Memoria collaborated on an adaptation of Marco Antonio de la Parra’s…

In the presence of armed federal marshall – called in amidst rumors there would be a protest from gay activists – the National Council on the Arts convened in Washington, D.C. for its mid-summer quarterly meeting on July 31 and Aug. 1. Voting in favor of all 828 grants recommended by the Arts Endowment’s advisory…

More than 6 million of the faithful have lined up for Arkansas’s Great Passion Play. Art is where you find it. I’m looking forward to when Our Savior gets lifted up on that wire,” says the man next to me. His name is Earl Potjeau and he is pointing to a cable high above our…

At TheatreWorks West in Salt Lake City, an original play, The Ballad of the Mountain Meadows, is in rehearsal. Playwright Raymond Hoskins, who is also acting in the show, is at odds with artistic director Fran Pruyn. Hoskins is defending what for him is an artistic imperative: honest representation. Pruyn is mediating on behalf of…

The term ‘comedy’ is a story that ends in a happy resolution, often in marriage. Since the ‘Merchant of Venice’ is classed as a romantic comedy, it also involves an engaging heroine. The comedy usually involves a struggle but towards the end, all pieces are supposed to fall into place. “The characters and their discomfitures…