ellen_datlow

I went to see Tom Stoppard's Arcadia Thursday evening. I know I saw the 1995 NY production, also with Bill Crudup but didn't remember much of it.

We were in the "gods," so I (at least) had trouble hearing some of the dialog--luckily I brought my opera glasses so I could see the whole thing).

( Read more... )

I went to Play Dead, a modern spook show created by Teller and Todd Robbins on Thursday. Based on the midnight spook shows that played throughout the US from the 1930s to the 1970s.
From the program: The shows all followed the same business plan and performance pattern. A magician would book a movie theater after the last feature on a Saturday night. He'd stick skulls all over his magic props, dress his assistants as sexy vampires, and give creepy themes to all his "patter." In the finale, somebody dressed as a mummy or werewolf would dash into the audience as all the light went out."

Todd Robbins is a charming, convincing magician-host. He tells stories about real people, he re-enacts horrific events, and as a mentalist he "brings to life" dead friends and relatives to some audience members. I won't say any more because I don't want to spoil it but I loved it and thank Neil Gaiman for reccing it on his blog.
If you're interested, don't read about it beforehand. I knew nothing about it and that's the way to go.



I watched The Uninvited Friday night with Shawna and I really hated it. I hadn't realized it was based on the Korean movie A Tale of Two Sisters, which I've read about. Maybe I'll check out the original. A young teenager is institutionalized for 10 months after trying to commit suicide upon the death by fire of her sickly mother. She returns home to discover her mother's nurse is now her dad's lover. The girl and her older sister come to suspect that the nurse was responsible for the mother's death and gather evidence.

I found the story preposterous and the always wide-eyed main character annoying. So sue me. ;-)

Last night I watched The Social Network, which ultimately made me want to quit FB because I found the character of Mark Zuckerberg such a loathsome human being. I know I'm supposed to feel sorry for him by the end, but I didn't. For anyone living under a rock, it's about the founding of facebook. Good movie, not a particularly great one. The problem is that the way Zuckerberg is portrayed, he's so lacking of empathy that you (or I anyway) couldn't give a damned about him, only about the people all around him that he betrayed.

Waltz With Bashir is a soul-searching animated documentary (mixed with dreams and visions) about Israeli writer/director Ari Folman's attempts to reconstruct--20 years later-- what he can't remember from his military reserve service in the 1982 Lebanon war.

He begins having nightmares related to that period of his life, and, after speaking with a psychologist friend, tracks down friends and acquaintances with whom he served plus the Israeli journalist who broke the news of the massacre in two Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra and Shatila. Excellent and highly recommended.

Catching up. I went to see Superior Donuts by Tracy Letts (author of August: Osage County) last week. Not at all bad, but as with his earlier play, the beginning is slow and annoying and it takes awhile to adjust to the slow pacing.

Older middle-aged widower (Michael McKean, who is terrific) owns a dying donut shop in Chicago that was opened by his father decades earlier. The play opens with two cops who frequent the shop there before it's open because it's been vandalized. Ambitious next-door neighbor wants to buy him out and expand his electronics biz. Young African American kid comes looking for a job and brings trouble. Female cop flirts with the owner, thugs threaten the kid, the owner is all angsty over being a draft dodger during Vietnam. I enjoyed it, although as my theater companions pointed out, a fight scene was utterly unconvincing and unnecessary. Definitely worth seeing before it closes in a few weeks.

Last weekend and this weekend I started watching the Buffy spinoff, Angel, with David Boreanaz. First disc with four episodes left me doubted I'd continue (jeez, I loathe Cordelia). But...since I had the second disc home I figured I'd give it one more chance, as I remember that Cordelia grew on me during Buffy. And yes, the next four episodes hooked me, especially with Buffy playing a prominent (and very moving) role in the 8th episode. Tears fell. ;-).

Last week I also watched the french film I've Loved you So Long, which features a brilliant performance by Kristin Scott Thomas that should have won her an Oscar, yet didn't even get her a damned nomination. Woman (Thomas) gets out of prison after serving 15 years for murder, and moves in temporarily with her sister and the sister's family. It's utterly riveting and moving as the viewer sees Thomas's character slowly move back into the world. Highly recommended.

Last night watched Sunshine Cleaning about two sisters who in desperation to earn a living, open a biohazard removal/cleaning service-ie. they clean up after violent and non-violent but messy deaths. I enjoyed watching Amy Adams and Emily Blunt and appreciate that the story is about the working poor trying to make a go of it (rather than the usual middle and upper middle classes) but it's only ok, not great. Worth a look.

And I finally saw Juno, which I liked quite a bit. It really is a smart, sassy little movie, just like its heroine. Good acting.

During the two movies, my DVD player started going weird. Power shut off and I had to replay fast forward to get to where I was--at first I thought it was the DVD but nope, it happened with both discs...and then the damned thing turned itself back on...uh oh. A DVD gremlin. I managed to watch both movies, with the interruptions but have just ordered a new DVD player. The old one lasted 6 1/2 years, which isn't too bad.

Last night I saw O'Neill's Desire under the Elms, with which I was not familiar. Even not having seen an earlier production, I could tell that this one was most likely unusual, as the set was filled with boulders and rocks--rocks hanging from the above, rocks all around, and two brothers hauling rocks as if they were animals. The house is held up by ropes above the stage and occasionally lowered onto the ground. This is not a hospitable land. It's meant to be New England in the mid nineteenth century. The music, when used, is dissonant and portentous and very effective. The overall feeling is grim.

Two older brothers (portrayed as dolts) and a younger brother by a different mother are waiting on the farm for their father to return. He left two months earlier on a mysterious mission....to bring back a woman, which he does.

The father is hard and seemingly heartless. He's played by Brian Dennehy, who is very good. He brings back Abbie, about whom we know little but that she wants to belong and she wants the farm (for what it's worth). So does Eben, the youngest son--dad doesn't want to give it up to anyone and claims he'll live till he's 100. (he's around 70). Abbie is played by the remarkable Carlo Gugino, who was excellent in the Marilyn Monroe role in the revival of Arthur Miller's After the Fall a couple of years ago. Eben is played by Pablo Schreiber (brother to Liev--Rick Bowes told me this, but I hadn't believed him at the time) and is pretty good.

It's no spoiler to reveal that Abbie and Eben fall for each other with an intensity that is thrilling to behold, and what ensues is both horrible and inevitable. I was left feeling sorry for Eben and Abbie but not the father, and I'm wondering if that's intentional. He created monsters by his inattention, his uncaring, his hardness.

It's fascinating to read what some critics have to say--that it's all about greed. I don't see the greediness but I see need in the characters. The need to own something--Eben and his brothers (and their mothers who have been worked to death) are like slaves to Ephraim, their father, who seems happiest among his cows in the barn. He needs no humans other than to keep the farm running.

I'm now curious to see another production of the play (I could read it of course, but nah--while I used to read plays a lot in high school during study hall-which took place in the school library I haven't felt compelled to since then).

Last night I saw the revival of August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone--a rich and moving play that deals with several aspects of the African American experience in the north in 1911.

The play takes place in a boarding house run by a perfectly matched middle aged couple--the husband works the night shift --I'm not clear what he actually does--but what he lovingly does in his spare time is make pots and pans out of sheet metal and sell his work to people in town and to an itinerant (white) salesman. The salesman who is welcomed when he comes every Saturday and does a side business of "finding people" reveals in one scene that he used to capture runaway slaves and return them to their owners. (although he doesn't seem old enough to have done so).

One of the boarders is Bynum, an elderly "root man"--who practices, not exactly voodoo but some version of it HooDoo and claims he can "bind" people to each other.

Another boarder is a young man who does road work --he's kind of a hot head, very young and outraged at his treatment by the police (who arrest him for drinking in public). He's also a flirt and is interested in any woman that crosses his path.

A mysterious man and his young daughter come to town looking for the man's wife and stay in the house as well. I don't want to provide spoilers so I'm going to be careful from here on. The man--always in black --wears a long black duster, is quick to anger and take offense and is not very good company through most of the play. We find out why in the second act.

A young woman pines for the man who left her because he believes her cursed--after both babies she has dies at only a month or two. She visits Bynum in the hopes she can help her get back her husband and bumps into the young man who lives at the boarding house.

Last into the mix comes a sexy, flirtatious good time gal just looking for a man to hang around with but who obviously wants nothing more serious than that.

I've seen other plays by Wilson: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Radio Golf--I don't believe I've seen the others. I know that each one covers a different decade in the African American experience. For me, this is the best by far (of the three above). Radio Golf while good and also interesting, was "thin" compared to Joe Turner.... I think it's the historical period Wilson covers in the play that makes it so powerful--it takes place less than fifty years after slavery was abolished-- the migration of many southern blacks north to a "better" place; the continuing harassment, taking advantage of, little and big cruelties of some whites towards blacks, etc.

The production is excellent--great sets and lighting (the storm scenes shown by changing the light on the backdrop are breathtaking). The acting wonderful.

If you can, go see it.

I saw the play on Broadway and enjoyed it very much. However, the movie is 20 times better. From the play only Frost and Nixon as characters made an impression. I have no idea if anyone else was in the play --I just do not remember. (and sure I can look it up, but that's irrelevant). The movie provides context ...for everything.

The secondary actors are uniformly excellent, from Kevin Bacon's Jack Brennan, the utterly loyal aide to Nixon and Toby Jones as Swifty Lazar (major player Hollywood agent of the time for those who don't recall)and Oliver Platt as producer Bob Zelnick and Sam Rockwell as James Reston, Jr.
Patty McCormick(remember The Bad Seed? ) plays Pat Nixon and Rebecca Hall plays Caroline Cushing, Frost's girlfriend at the time.

Michael Sheen does a very good job as David Frost (as he did in the play) and Frank Langella--what can I say? He's brilliant. Only a movie could capture the important facial expressions that make his Nixon come alive (and even, at the very end, sympathetic). I haven't yet seen The Wrestler (seeing it tomorrow) but I'll bet anyone that Langella and of Sean Penn will most definitely be competing for the Oscar.

The movie is, I think, more nuanced than the play because you see everything that went into setting up the interviews, the panic on Frost's side when things are going really badly. Also, the whole watching a movie watching tv brings something to the viewing experience that a play cannot.

I've always had this mixed relationship with regard to live theater vs the movies. I always feel more enveloped by movies than plays, although I do enjoy theater and attend it often. I know that many people embrace the immediacy of live theater and say there's nothing like it and in that I agree. The two experiences are almost incomparable. However, (as I've mentioned in an earlier post) as much as I loved the movie Doubt, I'm sorry I missed the live performances of it with Brian O'Byrne and Cherry Jones.

This evening (very early, 5:15), Rick Bowes, Jim Patrick Kelly, Mary Robinette Kowal, and I attended a performance of three one acts: Stanislaw Lem's How the World Was Saved, translated by Michael Kandel, who was coincidentally also in the audience with his charming wife Margie; On the Nature of Time by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg; and There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury.

The first play--with puppets--was wonderful (even though I'm not all that fond of Lem). It's about a scientist who builds a robot that can create anything that starts with the letter "n" and the fellow scientist whose challenge causes the robot to deconstruct the world. The puppets, music, robot (played by a human), and set --made up with many light bulbs were all very fine.

The second play was a perfectly realized time travel story about a man who recounts how, as a boy, he dreamed of discovering his difficult father murdered in his study. The special effects with a scrim and holographic--seeming lighting worked very well. I hope Barry has had a chance to see the performance. I'd think he would have enjoyed it.

The third, from a classic Bradbury story that really upset me when I first read it years ago, is about a completely mechanized house that continues to do all it's been programmed to do, despite the fact that the family who lived there -and everything else in the area--has been obliterated by a nuclear bomb. Three young women carry large white squares that represented the walls of the house. Rain is created by pouring water from a basin into a bucket and at times, letting it roll over the squares. The set was minimal, the overall effect powerful.

Afterward, we discovered that Liz Gorinsky of Tor was also in the audience. All of us but Liz (she had another engagement) went to dinner at Paris Commune after.

The last performance is at 151 Bank street in the west village on Saturday 7:30. If you're in the NYC area and can make it, I highly recommend it.
Info on there will be soft rains

I forgot to mention that I saw The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice, produced as a musical last week at the Minetta Lane Theater--a small venue in Greenwich Village. I'd never read or seen the play before and knew very little about it but that a friend of mine who had seen it a few months ago hated it. But because it won some awards and it was cheap (through TDF) I decided to take a chance. I enjoyed it. It's dated, but as a snapshot of boring, numbing, bookkeeping work in the 20s it was interesting, and I liked the production. Middle aged guy with horrible screeching, complaining wife goes to work daily and does numbers with a woman helper who obviously is interested in him. Boss fires him, guy murders boss and ends up on death row. Dies and instead of the Hell he expects he ends up in what seems like Heaven, a place he can do whatever he wants. Freedom. Plus, the co-worker (who he was interested in) kills herself because with him gone she has nothing to live for--and she ends up where he is. They CAN live happily ever after, but he freaks out and would rather go back to being a cog in the machine...

Today I went to a matinée performance of Clifford Odets' The Country Girl, with Morgan Freeman, Frances McDormand, and Peter Gallagher. Directed by Mike Nichols. I thought I remembered the play getting mixed reviews --I'll have to check--but it was brilliant. Great performances (some of you might have seen it as a movie with Grace Kelly --who I'd think would have been totally miscast--, William Holden, and Bing Crosby. I've never seen the movie). Once good actor who has been a lush for at least ten years is given a chance by a producer to star in a new play. The actor's wife, the "country girl" of the title, is either a support or hindrance, depending on who you believe.

The last two episodes of the first season of Deadwood--and yes, it keeps getting better and better; I Can't Sleep, a thought-provoking French film by Claire Denis about several "outsiders" in Paris whose lives connect interestingly--told against the background of a series of murders of old ladies based on real murders in the early 1990s.

And Swimming With Sharks, with a vicious Kevin Spacey as a movie executive, Frank Whalley, as his green put upon assistant, and Michelle Forbes (who I'd never seen before but has apparently been on a lot of tv series including "Lost" and "In Treatment") as a producer who is trying to get a deal for her script. Nasty nasty film.

Mary Robinette Kowal took Matt Kressel and me to opening night of the one-man show about Theodore Roosevelt. Matt talks about it below and says everything I would have said...Go see it!
Matt Kressel on The Bully Pulpit