Category: Theater

Manhattan Diversions: Movies, Art, etc.

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RECENT FILMS
Free Solo
This is a breathtaking and stunning National Geographic documentary about free soloing on Yosemite’s El Capitan. That is, climbing its 3,000 foot rock wall without any ropes. The first person to ever do that was Alex Hannold in June 2017, and this is the story and the backstory of that historic climb. What makes this such a fascinating film is that you learn a lot about Alex as a person and what drives him and why, as much as he can articulate it, he feels compelled to undertake such a risky climb.

The film crew, several other professional climbers, and his girlfriend Sanni, are also prominently featured. I found the fears of the film crew on his behalf and Sanni’s candor about their relationship and her concerns about how Alex communicates emotion added a richness and intimacy to the film. Highly recommend it!

A Star is Born
This is the fourth version or re-make of this film, this time starring Bradley Cooper who also directs it, and Lady Gaga. I’ve heard Lady Gaga sing a few times, but it was a new and amazing experience to see her develop in this part. The movie has lots of loud music and is as much a concert at times as it is a drama. Cooper stars as Jackson Maine, a popular singer on his way down, and Lady Gaga as Ally, the ingenue he discovers whose career quickly outstrips his.

I thought the film was a bit long and slow in parts, but appreciated that although Jackson lets her down repeatedly, Ally is never mean or nasty, but basically loving, not a side of celebrities that movies always depict. Go and you may leave humming the tune to “Shallow.”

EXHIBIT NOTES
Dorothea Lange’s America at Reynolda House Museum of American art
In North Carolina, this small gallery photography exhibit consists of a number of Lange’s portraits and scenes depicting poverty and hardship during the 1920’s and 30’s. Also included are photos by Walker Evans and others from the same period. What made the exhibit more meaningful for me were the longer explanations of context and setting on some of the labels. If you to to Winston-Salem, you can also tour the Reynolds home (he, the tobacco baron) and the attractive gardens on the property.

Delacroix at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The 18th century French painter, Eugene Delacroix, was a master draftsman. This small exhibit focuses on a variety of sketches and drawings he did in preparation for larger paintings. Several small watercolors are also included.

Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich:  The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922 at the Jewish Museum

This featured exhibit covers a short period in Russian art after the overthrow of the czar when Chagall and others founded an art school.  The dominant art movement was Suprematism, founded by Malevich, which used basic geometric shapes and a limited color palette in both painting and architecture.  Chagall soon drifted away from strict adherence to it.

FABULOUS PLAY!


Most everyone has seen one version or another of My Fair Lady and probably one of the film versions which has a happy ending, not part of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.  This new production at Lincoln Center is truly a My Fair Lady for our time. Lauren Ambrose is luminescent as Eliza Doolittle, who starts out as a lonely flower seller, but comes into her own as a woman by taking up Professor Higgins’ offer to pass her off as a lady.
The stage sets are amazing with a pointed contrast between Higgins’ elaborately designed house and the often bare stage on which Eliza sings or cavorts. Choreography is exuberant, occasionally to the point of boisterousness, as in Alfred Doolittle’s rousing rendition of “Get Me to the Church on Time,” complete with dancers in drag. Silver and lilac costumes in the Ascot scene are sumptuous and cooly elegant. All the songs and the singing are wonderful—both Eliza’s and the professor’s.

What might surprise you is how this production ends, but I won’t tell, except that it’s the right ending for today. Our performance featured a number of understudies including Tony Roach as Higgins and Joe Hart as Alfred Doolittle, and they were so good, I probably wouldn’t have known they weren’t the usual leads. If you have the chance, see it!

Note:  Header photo is of Delacroix’s A Moroccan Couple on Their Terrace, 1832.  Photos by JWFarrington.

Tidy Tidbits: On Stage, Screen & Page

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ON STAGE—Always…Patsy Cline

Florida Studio Theatre’s production of Always…Patsy Cline was a wonderful immersion in Cline’s most famous hits.  This is a play, rather than a cabaret performance, although Patsy is mostly just singing.  The context and glue are provided by the connection and friendship that developed between Houston fan Louise Seger and Cline.   I expected the role of Louise to be a minor one; instead Susan Greenhill as Louise is superb—funny, mouthy, caustic, and oh, so spirited!

Jones & Greenhill from broadwayworld.com

 

Meredith Jones, as Patsy, appears in almost as many different dresses and outfits, all perfect for the early 1960’s, as there are songs, and captures the aching quality of Cline’s voice.  One of my favorite songs being “Crazy.”  The show was so popular with local audiences it frequently sold out and was then extended by a week.

 

 

ON TV—Janet King (Acorn)

Cast from dailytelegraph.com.au

If you liked Marta Dusseldorp in A Place to Call Home, chances are you’ll find her equally fascinating and complex as the star of Janet King.  Based in Sydney, Janet King is a crown prosecutor and later head of a royal commission investigating gun violence.  She is smart, controlled and controlling and stubborn.  Her home life has its own set of potential challenges with a lesbian partner and two small children.  Her office colleagues are well developed characters complete with their own issues, both political and personal.  This legal drama is full of surprises and twists, some violence, and is occasionally dark, but always compelling.  There are three seasons.

 

ON PAPER—Asymmetry

Halliday by Sophia Evans for the Observer

#6  Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday is one of the more unusual novels I’ve read recently, but also one of the most delightful.  The first section, “Folly” is about the love affair between 25-year old editor Alice and the decades older successful novelist, Ezra Blazer (modeled after the author’s real affair with Philip Roth, say the critics).  There is tenderness, humor, and discussions of literature and aging as he molds and manages her.  His phone calls always arrive, CALLER ID BLOCKED.

In the second section, “Madness,” also aptly titled, is the story of newly minted PhD Amar from Los Angeles who is trying to get to Iraq to visit his brother.  He is detained at Heathrow Airport and denied entry to the UK; while there he reviews his own life and his extended family’s checkered history and reflects on both American and international politics, all the while annoyed at this delay, but not overtly angry.  Lastly, the extended interview with Ezra Blazer fills in more of his life and loves as well as his thoughts on the role of art and literature.  All three sections take place in different years.  Blazer’s coda links back to “Folly,” but Amar’s section is more discrete.  (~JWFarrington)

 

 

Manhattan Viewing

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This blog post is all about seeing, and in Manhattan, there is so much to see–scenes of nature and water, famous art works, fabulous live theater, and even the occasional television program.   We had it all this week!

LIVE THEATER

Three Tall Women by Edward Albee (on Broadway)

Having the opportunity to see Glenda Jackson live on stage would have been reason enough to see this play.  I loved her performances in Sunday, Bloody Sunday, and as Elizabeth I in that early Masterpiece Theatre offering.  She then left the theater world for more than 20 years to serve in Parliament, only recently returning first to play King Lear (she always was an audacious actor) and then this role.

Jackson here is a crotchety, difficult, physically frail 91-year-old woman with a fulltime caregiver and a young lawyer.  These three women spar and verbally joust as A, the old woman, relives memories of her past.  Later we see that the three are the same woman at 26, 52, and 90+ years of age and, we hear how their experiences and their take on life shape what they become at each stage.  

It’s a powerful play about the ideals of youth, the disappointments along the way, marriage and infidelity, anger and bitterness, and the ravages of time and old age.  And it’s a superb production with a fabulous cast—Laurie Metcalf, of recent fame for her role as the mother in the film Lady Bird, and Alison Pill, a talented newcomer (to me)—join the inimitable and indomitable Glenda Jackson.  On a side note, I loved their purple and mauve dresses in the final scenes!

RETURN MUSEUM VISIT

It’s been some years since we last visited the Frick Collection and I’d forgotten how lovely an experience it is!  We began this visit by watching two videos, one on the museum’s collection of enamels (mildly interesting unless this is “your thing”), and the other, an introductory video about Henry Clay Frick, the man, and how he came to build this grand and glorious mansion.  It’s excellent and sets the stage nicely for viewing the art.

One room was built as a gallery and at 96 feet long and thirty-some feet wide, it’s an impressive space filled with oversize paintings and highly decorated furnishings.  In his collecting, Frick favored portraits and landscapes and there are several Turners and a number of Gainsboroughs, as well as works by Holbein, Van Dyke and Rembrandt.  He liked to pair paintings, individual portraits of a husband and wife either side by side or flanking another work or a fireplace. One example is the pairing by a fireplace of arch enemies Sir Thomas More and Oliver Cromwell, both painted by Holbein.

The soft green dining room  where Frick regularly hosted dinners for 26 (all men) is also pleasing, as is the room created solely for the purpose of displaying the 18thcentury Fragonard murals.

Except for in the Garden Court, no photography is allowed.  This enclosed space is serene and beautiful with marble benches and a fountain.  Perfect for when you need a break from all the marvelous art.

SMALL SCREEN

Unforgotten (Masterpiece Mystery).

This British detective series is thoughtful and not flashy.  Detective Chief Inspector Cassie Stuart and her team are tasked with determining the circumstances of death surrounding individuals whose bodies have been found unidentified and often forgotten.  Frequently, the death has occurred decades ago.  Cassie and Sunny (Sanjeev Bhaskar), her detective partner, must unearth family history, trace the individual’s travels and follow up in person with anyone and everyone with whom he might have been associated. If the death is suspicious, and indeed, they always are, then charges may be brought. 

Nicola Walker, the star, will be familiar to viewers of Last Tango in Halifax  while co-star Bhaskar was in Indian Summers.  Here Walker is the guv and the one with the responsibility for bringing a case to closure.  This is a series full of patient and methodical tracking and questioning as it delves into the psyches of both the deceased and his family.  I found it fascinating with the last episode extremely sensitive in its portrayal of the life-changing and lasting damage from sexual abuse.

Note:  Header photo view from Central Park and Garden Court photo ©JWFarrington.  Women photo from playbill.com and Unforgotten image from pbs.org.

Tidy Tidbits: Flowers, Books, etc.

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WARHOL IN THE GARDEN  

Continuing their annual tradition of presenting several of an artist’s works and interpreting them in the garden, Selby Gardens this year is focusing on Andy Warhol.  Throughout the garden there are large white square planters filled with magenta and pink impatiens as well as a divided window display of plants against a multi-colored screen and some oversize acrylic red and yellow blooms.  In the conservatory there are other treatments of Warhol’s love of repeating shapes or patterns, and in the house museum, four of Warhol’s flower paintings.  It’s always fun to go to Selby Gardens, always something new to see, and I never tire of visiting.  This time we took our Philadelphia friends Ellen and Bob.

  

READING

Tomorrow, April 23, is World Book Day.  Established in 1995 by UNESCO, it aims to promote reading, copyright, and publishing.  April 23 is the day Shakespeare died, but in the U.K, World Book Day is celebrated the first Thursday in March.

TIMELY NOVEL

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

What happens to the relationship between an educated middle class black couple when he is found guilty and sentenced to twelve years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit?  Roy is an up and coming 30’s executive living in Atlanta and his wife, Celestial, is a talented artist whose business making dolls (poupees) is getting attention and making money.  Their mutual friend Andre, a computer programmer who introduced the couple to each other, also harbors fond feelings for Celestial.  The novel alternates chapters between the three of them, Roy, Celestial, and Andre, initially with the letters Roy and Celeste write to each other as time unfolds and as Roy’s sentence is served.  In prison, he meets his biological father, his mother gets cancer, and Celestial finds it harder and harder to maintain their brief marriage.

Andre’s uncle Banks works the justice system on Roy’s behalf and when Roy is cleared and released early, the situation becomes a crisis as all parties grapple with what comes next.  With empathy and clear-sightedness, Jones creates the world as it exists for a black man in Atlanta from small town Louisiana.  To her credit, you, the reader, feel something for each one of them, Celestial, Roy, and Andre.  They are not bad people, just humans with good intentions, aspirations, and shortcomings.

Our island book group enjoyed the novel and had a thoughtful discussion about what it must mean to be a black man in today’s society.  We also thought that Roy’s meeting his father in prison was unconvincing and too pat.   This is Oprah’s Book Club pick for 2018 and it’s a worthwhile investment of your reading time.  (~JWFarrington)

HISTORICAL MYSTERY

No Comfort for the Lost by Nancy Herriman

In her debut mystery, Herriman takes on old San Francisco in a manner reminiscent of Victoria Thompson’s Gaslight Mysteries set in old New York City.  The year is 1867, anti-Chinese sentiment is on the rise, and nurse Celia Davies runs a medical clinic for women.  One of her Chinese patients dies in suspicious circumstances.  Celia is a transplant from Britain who initially came to the U.S. with her Irish husband.  He has since left, and she lives with her housekeeper and her half-Chinese cousin Barbara.  Detective Nick Greaves is assigned to the case, but keeps encountering Celia who is doing her own investigating in some of the shadier areas of the city.  I know San Francisco so enjoyed this book for its setting and appreciated its basis around real events of the time, but found the pacing a bit slow.  There is a second title in this series, No Pity for the Dead (2016) which I’ve not read.  (~JWFarrington)

CHALLENGING PLAY

Gloria, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a comic-tragic piece of theater that was a 2016 Pulitzer finalist.  I didn’t love it, but I thought it was very well acted and staged.  It’s about a group of millennials, office colleagues, and their relationships with each other and their feelings toward their much older boss.  The first act is jokey and sarcastic with lots of colorful language until there is violence.  The second act is a whole different mood as these individuals deal with the aftermath of a horrible event.  Seen at the Asolo Repertory Theatre, it runs through April 29th.

Note:  Tayari Jones photo from Wikipedia.  Other photos by JW Farrington.