Books
New York in February: there’s a blizzard outside and the streets of New York’s East Village are lined with great mounds of pure white snow, but Jesse Malin’s devout fans remain undeterred. They gather in Malin’s basement club- ‘Bowery Electric’- for a night of the rocker’s distinct form of punk rock.
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‘L’Enfance Nue’ is striking in the blandness of its imagery. There is nothing aesthetically to distinguish the reality of this film from the reality of one’s everyday life. As the film opens on a dreary day on a street lined with concrete buildings, one shivers at the truthfulness of Pialat’s world. Life would never look so real were it reflected in a mirror.
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On a cold evening in February, well-dressed theatregoers in cravats and crisp white shirts gathered in the lobby of the Duke Theater on 42nd street. They were there to see ‘Measure for Measure’, the latest Shakespearian offering from Theater for a New Audience and its most fashionable director, Arin Arbus. What began as patches of hushed conversation soon escalated into a cacophony of sound with the arrival of more audience members and anticipation hung in the air.
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Viewing Inka Essenhigh’s ‘Minor Sea Gods of Maine’ reminds us of turning the first page of a wonderful storybook. We delve back into our imaginations and explore the celestial images of our dreams on canvas. A ghostly green sea seeps over rocks. Finely drawn waves form a frothy beaked gargoyle, sitting on the edge of a rocky precipice. A long green limb emerges from the sea and penetrates the sky: Dimensions and boundaries become meaningless aside from one fine line marking the horizon. Brush strokes seem gentle but precise in creating this mythical otherworldly scene, a throwback to religious pagan imagery.
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Nominations have been announced. Check if your predictions were right…
After a tedious run of Othello at the public theatre, a more exciting prospect has arrived in the form of an Irish export. ‘Silver Stars’, a home-grown collaboration by Sean Millar and Brokentalkers theatre company, is a song cycle based on the lives of older Irish gay men.
Freefall is both like and unlike any of Corn Exchange’s previous work. Director Annie Ryan seems to have somewhat moved away from her signature use of ‘white face’ and Commedia dell’Arte. This would lead audiences to believe that perhaps this production is more ‘contemporary’ than the Corn Exchange has shown us before.
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Being somewhat of an art neophyte when it comes to physical artistic products- both sculptures and paintings generally confound me in their simplicity- I felt somewhat vulnerable in the Museum of Modern Art this weekend. Surrounded by camera yielding tourists and genuine art junkies in unequal numbers, I felt like a fraud as I stared absently at pieces which, in my seemingly ignorant opinion, did not qualify as artful in both the most common sense of the word or even in a more forgiving Warholian sense. I strove to find something inspirational in what I saw before me. Other people seemed to be conjuring up the first chapter of their third novel as they sat staring at blank canvases and old shoes- I, like Danto’s child who saw sticks as sticks, had nothing.
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August 2009 – The Abbey Theatre is proud to present the world premiere of a new play by twice Booker-nominated writer, Sebastian Barry, as part of its programme for this year’s Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival. TALES OF BALLYCUMBER opens at the Abbey on Wednesday 7 October (previews from 30 September) and features Oscar-nominated actor, Stephen Rea, and Aaron Monaghan in the leading roles.
Artistic Director Loughlin Deegan announced details of the programme for the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival which will run from 24th Sept – 11th Oct 2009.
Loughlin acknowledged the invaluable support of their title sponsor who over the past three years has underpinned an extraordinary period of growth for the Festival. Ulster Bank, who is renowned for its championing of the arts, plays a vital role in bringing the best of Irish and International theatre to audiences in Dublin. He also credited the invaluable support of the Arts Council in its continued support of the Festival.
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