It’s that time of year again: book buying time! But with these titles, I’m not complaining.
Obsess (to be obsessed): preoccupy or fill the mind of (someone) continually, intrusively, and to a troubling extent
One Man, 10 Favorites, Guvnor
Ben Brantley’s Top 10 Productions of 2012
“May your days be edgy and interdisciplinary.”
Gotta love The Kitchen
Be Stone No More – A Tabletop Shakespeare directed by Tim Etchells
Director Tim Etchells invites a collection of people with different relationships to Shakespeare – including actors, writers and academics – to each choose a Shakespeare play, take a seat at table and narrate / enact the story using their own selection of everyday objects as stand-ins for the characters. These comical, absurd and intimate to-camera performances are schematic diagrams of Shakespeare – lovingly made miniatures which condense the world of each play to a one metre square tabletop and summon it with a collection of banal materials and objects.
ugh, world. and amazing immersive theatre. stop it. if only I was in NY (and over 21…) to see this!
Then She Fell NYTimes Review (by Ben Brantley)
Nothing is explained as it’s happening. And if you don’t know Carroll’s life and works, you won’t know who these people are supposed to be. (Programs are given out only at the conclusion.) What you will experience is the feeling that children sometimes have of being swept up into busy, self-important social rituals that make no sense. And of spying on adult activities that don’t make much sense either and are equally creepy and thrilling.
A House Divided at BAM
Alternating between vignettes from John Steinbeck’s Depression-era novel The Grapes of Wrath and stories of contemporary foreclosure and finance, the work revolves around onstage remnants of an actual foreclosed home as it is inhabited, abandoned, repurposed, collateralized, securitized, and ultimately destroyed. On multiple screens and on stage, stirring personal testimonials contrast with a digital vision of our highly automated, mediated global market system, creating a distinctly 21st-century portrait of human struggle in the face of an uncertain financial future.
How does school possibly expect me to do my homework when there is so much theatre in the world to see?
I saw one of their shows at St. Ann’s Labapalooza this summer and did nott like it. This looks really cool though…
These guys. I like ‘em.
(via henriklemon)
The Coming Storm
Devised by Forced Entertainment
Battersea Arts Center, London, UK
If theatre is about storytelling, then Forced Entertainment definitely makes theatre. Their new show, The Coming Storm, at Battersea Arts Center is Spalding Gray meets The Moth meets a kindergarten classroom right before recess. Conceived and devised by the company of six plus artistic director Tim Eschells, The Coming Storm tells a thousand stories without fully getting across a single one. The performers tell one anecdote after another, almost never letting the person before them finish before they steal the solo travelling microphone to tell their own, often exaggerated and self-absorbed, tale. A tangle of childish humor, mediocre dance, and cheesy piano playing, the show, although under the guise of a story-filled evening, is actually one distraction after another. But I think that was the point. More than once, the performers told us where our attention should go: “Keep your eyes on Richard” (the verbal story teller), they said, “you’ll get a lot out of it.” But with one man running around in a crocodile suit and another playing a drum set while all the rest of them are pushing an upright piano back and fourth again and again, how could my attention stay on the story? As the distractions grew and developed, I started wondering what the point of trying to tell stories even was any more. In a profession where storytelling is generally considered the most important component, that is a troublesome but intensely thought-provoking idea. Energetic, humorous, messy, and simply all-over-the-place, The Coming Storm is storytelling at its most vulnerable.
Walking — by Robert Wilson, Theun Mosk, and Boukje Schweigman
It’s a walk you take individually, and at a measured pace (about one mile an hour), through the most breathtaking landscape on and around Holkham beach in north Norfolk.
Four installations punctuate the way and as we passed through each, they appeared to heighten certain aspects of the landscape.
If you’re looking for drama, you will not find it here. But if you want a chance to take your time and think like an ancient Greek, then this might just be the way forward. Albeit slowly.
A group show in a warehouse in Hoxton. A number of artists and a range of work: sculptures, paintings, photographs, performance and video. You’d made an appointment to see the show. When you arrived, the building was open but the exhibition appeared to be closed. Or maybe the show was over, and the works were waiting to be taken away?
(Source: artangel.org.uk)
How I learned to love immersive theatre -- Mark Lawson
My guess…was that this stage represented a detoxification chamber and it seemed to work because my negative feelings about ambulatory site-specific pieces were noticeably fewer…
Roman Tragedies
dir. Ivo van Hove
at BAM
Watch! It looks so amazing!
(Source: youtube.com)
I miss New York theatre :(
I mean, London is great, but…
Maybe my longing for good NY fringe has to do with the fact that I saw two not so good experimental shows between tonight and last night.
In any case, I miss it. I want it. I need it. I can’t wait to have it back.
(or to find good theatre here in London, because I know it exists!)
Matilda
Cambridge Theatre - London
Student rushed this show last Sunday.
The show was really good! I mean, it was a feel good musical so, ya know. But it was a really good feel good musical! And I just love watching kids on stage. They always impress me.
