(The Old Globe Theatre, 12 August 2010)
The plot celebrates the twentieth century Robin Hoods---the independent media, especially television. The musical does not innovate. It reliably entertains with the traditional. The first act is saturated with songs sung too closely and with one-liners spoken too quickly---often leaving no room for acting. When present, acting betrays Broadway training. The musical numbers are contrived, but mostly one delights in how cleverly contrived they are.
As soon as the first words of "Come Fly with Me" are sung by Little John Dante (played by Will Chase), the audience senses the irony, suspends its breath, and hopes that John's fiancee (played by Amy Spanger) will not detect the insencerety betrayed by his employment of the off-the-shelf standard. John recognises the precariousness of his situation, and realises that the audience does so (and, possibly, that the audience realises that he realises). The song's salsa segment is expertly done. So is the scene on the plane; the flight attendants' moaning approaches the grotesque but never trespasses it.
17 August 2010
25 July 2010
"Endpoint" by John Updike (2009)
Poetry produces intensity from precision, parsimony, and sometimes rhyme. Forced rhyme compromises sincerity. Absent rhyme often signals self-obsessed ramblings of a feeble mind---unlike Updike's. Rhyme slipped nonchalantly---mid-sentence, mid-stanza---punctuates thought the way only the spoken word can, thus giving thoughts physical expression. Broken lines and split sentences are spurious pauses. They discourage the reader from racing through the seamless verse. A poem is akin to a music score; it must be spoken to be appreciated fully.
When one is receptive of confession, Updike's poetry infects one with the capacity for the thought-soaked feeling. The poems' intensity (the better ones', at any rate), however, prevents them from captivating a distracted mind. Prose, with its more nuanced intensity, is better at winning the reader's confidence and nurturing his pensive mood.
When one is receptive of confession, Updike's poetry infects one with the capacity for the thought-soaked feeling. The poems' intensity (the better ones', at any rate), however, prevents them from captivating a distracted mind. Prose, with its more nuanced intensity, is better at winning the reader's confidence and nurturing his pensive mood.
22 July 2010
Yves Saint Laurent: Rétrospective
(Petit Palais, 17 July 2010)
An individual is remembered for an impeccable final product---not a concept, not a prototype. It takes talent to see the possible. It takes genius to recognise the indispensable in the possible, and to see it through. Yves Saint Laurent recognised as indispensable the trouser suit known possible at least since Marlene Dietrich. He introduced dresses animated by women, instead of designing dresses defining women, who, in turn, would hope that no one else would be able to afford the same definition. Yves Saint Laurent's dress is a vocabulary, bound with dignity.
With the emergence of mass production, individual creativity replaces purchased creativity. It is not enough to hang art. To distinguish oneself, one must be art. Inhabiting an elegant dress is a helpful induction.
On mannequins, dresses tell more than they do on photographs or screen. One can see them in low light (uncharitable to cameras) as they are intended to be seen---at a ball, at night. One can see them close-up, in three dimensions, appreciate their texture and volume. Only then dresses, as sculptures, come to life.
An individual is remembered for an impeccable final product---not a concept, not a prototype. It takes talent to see the possible. It takes genius to recognise the indispensable in the possible, and to see it through. Yves Saint Laurent recognised as indispensable the trouser suit known possible at least since Marlene Dietrich. He introduced dresses animated by women, instead of designing dresses defining women, who, in turn, would hope that no one else would be able to afford the same definition. Yves Saint Laurent's dress is a vocabulary, bound with dignity.
With the emergence of mass production, individual creativity replaces purchased creativity. It is not enough to hang art. To distinguish oneself, one must be art. Inhabiting an elegant dress is a helpful induction.
On mannequins, dresses tell more than they do on photographs or screen. One can see them in low light (uncharitable to cameras) as they are intended to be seen---at a ball, at night. One can see them close-up, in three dimensions, appreciate their texture and volume. Only then dresses, as sculptures, come to life.
Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève
(Palais Royal, 16 August 2010)
It has taken Alfred Hitchcock twelve hours to set up the scene in the flower shop in "Vertigo." The scene is less than a minute of the film. This is all one must know about the creation of art in order to appreciate it. "Jours étranges" insists on telling substantially more. It puts the creation of art into the perspective of life. The result is neither art nor life, but fundamental science---as opposed to engineering. The result is a model, not a final product. The model's value is in teaching the audience to recognise art and to avoid artless life.
"So schnell" subtracts from the conventional art form element after element: music, grace, narrative. The exercise helps the viewer define his own boundaries of art and of beauty. Beauty is economy, purpose, and communication. When intentional, beauty is art. A dance without music (as a poem without rhyme) can be art---liberated, uncompromisingly precise, and direct.
Often, however, a choreographer benefits from the discipline imposed by music. Music reminds dancers to coördinate with each other because they must coördinate with music. Harmony in music (as rhyme in poetry) enables the viewer to anticipate imminent moves, thus turning the viewer into a collaborator. Anticipation amplifies movement by making it seem inevitable. The inevitability distinguishes dance from sport.
It has taken Alfred Hitchcock twelve hours to set up the scene in the flower shop in "Vertigo." The scene is less than a minute of the film. This is all one must know about the creation of art in order to appreciate it. "Jours étranges" insists on telling substantially more. It puts the creation of art into the perspective of life. The result is neither art nor life, but fundamental science---as opposed to engineering. The result is a model, not a final product. The model's value is in teaching the audience to recognise art and to avoid artless life.
"So schnell" subtracts from the conventional art form element after element: music, grace, narrative. The exercise helps the viewer define his own boundaries of art and of beauty. Beauty is economy, purpose, and communication. When intentional, beauty is art. A dance without music (as a poem without rhyme) can be art---liberated, uncompromisingly precise, and direct.
Often, however, a choreographer benefits from the discipline imposed by music. Music reminds dancers to coördinate with each other because they must coördinate with music. Harmony in music (as rhyme in poetry) enables the viewer to anticipate imminent moves, thus turning the viewer into a collaborator. Anticipation amplifies movement by making it seem inevitable. The inevitability distinguishes dance from sport.
29 June 2010
All My Sons
(Apollo Theatre, 26 June 2010)
Each aspires to dignity, none is obviously mistaken, each treats others unequally. All are human, which is unacceptable to some characters.
Not knowing or unable to practice the second-best strategy in life, one can resort to the safest strategy, integrity. (Which is also the first-best one.) Integrity requires constrained selflessness, which is unconstrained selfishness.
It is hard to forgive a friend's or a relative's offence, as such an offence is aggravated by the concomitant deception, without which the offence would have been anticipated. It is harder still to forgive one's own self-deception, which exposes the disturbing lack of control over one's own life, not just the lives of others.
An ideal society is not that which creates no temptation, but that which allows for temptation but teaches individuals to overcome it when they would benefit from doing so. Teaching requires forgiveness. Because individuals differ, for some, freedoms will be excessive and punishments too harsh, and their lives' value will lie in the lessons to others. The society evolves as its members learn---through arts, education, and lucky encounters.
The actors convey the passion without forcing the characters to appear extrovert. Voices are raised only infrequently, to emphasise an idea, never to broadcast an emotion. The assumed accents, consistent across players, emerge from characters, not from actors.
For two hours, the actors live on stage. It is hard to live the life of a bad man (unless this is the live of one's own). Hence, out of necessity, each actor has crafted a good, rich life to portray. When these lives clash, no amplification is required.
A character must be more subtle than the audience expects him to be. Subtlety creates suspense, makes the audience think and thus contribute to the play. In the Arthur Miller's minimalist play, much of the subtlety is created by the actors (David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker) and the director (Howard Davies).
Each aspires to dignity, none is obviously mistaken, each treats others unequally. All are human, which is unacceptable to some characters.
Not knowing or unable to practice the second-best strategy in life, one can resort to the safest strategy, integrity. (Which is also the first-best one.) Integrity requires constrained selflessness, which is unconstrained selfishness.
It is hard to forgive a friend's or a relative's offence, as such an offence is aggravated by the concomitant deception, without which the offence would have been anticipated. It is harder still to forgive one's own self-deception, which exposes the disturbing lack of control over one's own life, not just the lives of others.
An ideal society is not that which creates no temptation, but that which allows for temptation but teaches individuals to overcome it when they would benefit from doing so. Teaching requires forgiveness. Because individuals differ, for some, freedoms will be excessive and punishments too harsh, and their lives' value will lie in the lessons to others. The society evolves as its members learn---through arts, education, and lucky encounters.
The actors convey the passion without forcing the characters to appear extrovert. Voices are raised only infrequently, to emphasise an idea, never to broadcast an emotion. The assumed accents, consistent across players, emerge from characters, not from actors.
For two hours, the actors live on stage. It is hard to live the life of a bad man (unless this is the live of one's own). Hence, out of necessity, each actor has crafted a good, rich life to portray. When these lives clash, no amplification is required.
A character must be more subtle than the audience expects him to be. Subtlety creates suspense, makes the audience think and thus contribute to the play. In the Arthur Miller's minimalist play, much of the subtlety is created by the actors (David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker) and the director (Howard Davies).
8 June 2010
"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1926)
Gatsby—the man that he thought the woman he loved thought he was—was mistaken, owing to his not-yet “thinning briefcase of enthusiasm’’ (unlike that of the novel’s narrator), the flourishes of New York, and the insufficiency of his five-months’ overseas education.
The novel reads as a movie script waiting to be animated. The characters engage neither individually nor as a class. They are no class. Foreigners to the East, they are attracted to New York by its conspicuous features, which often are its most superficial ones. The characters' failings point not at a class, but at the lack of due diligence in the era of National newspapers, large-scale frauds, and affordable travel.
The novel reads as a movie script waiting to be animated. The characters engage neither individually nor as a class. They are no class. Foreigners to the East, they are attracted to New York by its conspicuous features, which often are its most superficial ones. The characters' failings point not at a class, but at the lack of due diligence in the era of National newspapers, large-scale frauds, and affordable travel.
7 June 2010
Singing on the River
(Trinity College Cambridge, 6 June 2010)
Melancholy shuns neither misery nor comfort. In misery, it inspires despair; in comfort, it inspires beauty. Despair is forgotten, beauty is immortal. He who finds comfort may live on through beauty, in songs centuries old, in voices young and happy.
Melancholy shuns neither misery nor comfort. In misery, it inspires despair; in comfort, it inspires beauty. Despair is forgotten, beauty is immortal. He who finds comfort may live on through beauty, in songs centuries old, in voices young and happy.
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