ARTS INTERNATIONAL
Editor/Publisher, Bina Sharif
ARTS INTERNATIONAL covers THEATER, FILM, VISUAL ARTS, CUISINE, AND LITERATURE

Friday, December 11, 2009

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO DO?
A POEM
BY
M. Nousan

What a question?
Who dare ask me this kind of question?

I have always managed to do nothing when there is nothing to do
I am not one of those programmed professors who always have to do something

I do nothing even when there are piles of things to be done
Like these days and like always

Since I do nothing all the time
Thats why there are piles of things to be done always

People do their laundry
I put it in laundry bags
And let it wait
Why not?
We are all waiting for something
Why can't laundry wait?

Dishes can wait too.
We are waiting
Why can't dishes wait?
Are the dishes more special than us?
Us...Wonderful human beings...

We have to wait for money, boy friends, husbands, children, In-laws. jobs
What do dishes have to wait for?
Someone's lousy appetite?
So they can dump the half cooked, half uncooked greasy chicken in the dish
And then gulp it in one bite and without wiping their mouths go back to
Their computers because they are all now poets....
Poets my...

Dishes can wait, so can a broom, a mop, a cleaning pad...
Throw these ugly things out...
They have made the house look really bad
Throw it out
Every thing
Every ugly thing, throw it out
And you?
You?
You wait
Wait for what?
Wait for nothing...

Nothing is coming Ok?
Except diseases and death...
"EVENTUALITY." Its called....

Oh! I made you depressed, so very depressed
You, a delicate little flower with delicate little feelings
Who is never going to wither away in the wind...
Oh! I am so dark and so depressing
And the World is so cheery outside...

Only Other's world is cheery honey
Go ask their wives...
They show their naked arms in winter, summer and fall...

You think their dishes are waiting?
You think their laundry is waiting?
You think they are doing the dishes?

They are whispering in her husband's ears all night
"Honey, take us to exotic places
Because we are so exotic....look at our arms...take us...to exotic lands

For folks like us, Unemployed, Un-fashionable Doing nothing is better...
Nothing doing, nothing coming, nothing going...
Everything can wait...for nothing... and then there is nothing...
End is nothing and nothingness.....
For us and for the dishes and the dirt and mops and brooms...
and for the rich wives with groomed, tanned bare arms......


Tuesday, June 16, 2009

THEATER REVIEW
BY
BINA SHARIF

RICHARD III: AN ARAB TRAGEDY
AT
BAM
PART OF MUSLIM VOICES
       ARTS & IDEAS
Adapted and directed by
Sulayman Al-Bassam

This Richard III: played with gusto and confidence by, (Fayez Kazak who also plays duke of Gloucester) has no deformity at all.  Instead he has an extra ability of being a first rate comedian.  Audience members, especially Arabic speaking laugh loud and often at this 21st Century adaptation of Richard III with cell phones, Tv monitors, text messages, Instant 
coverage of all the carnage which Richard bestow upon his relatives and people.
If any one dared to make Richard III: a historical tragedy into a funny farce about the functioning and mostly non functioning of the leaderships of the Middle East, Its Sulayman Al- Bassam, the director and the leader of Sabab, an International touring theater.

His approach in adapting the tragedy of Richard III: into an Arab tragedy is appropriate knowing what's been going on in the Persian Gulf.  Sulayman Al-Bassam seems amused by
projecting the basic flaws of the kingdoms and cultures, corruption, deceit, greed and the hunger for power at the expense of many lives.

Richard III: When at the end  desperately seeking a horse which he would gladly exchange for his kingdom, we all know that all that power and greed was not worth it....And we feel  bad for the fallen king to say the least but in this production one tends to laugh and enjoy more not because the end is not tragic but it had been handled throughout in such a funny manner that
one is almost amused at the folly of most of the Arab leaders who acts first and think later or hardly think at all about their cruelty.

This production's most beautiful effect is that its spoken in Melodious Arabic language.
Just to hear the sound of Azan, (The Arabic and Muslim call to prayers in the major American theater) is mesmerizing.  And the live band creating the melody of lament is sadly thrilling.

Fayez Kazak who plays both parts, Duke of Gloucester and king Richard III:  has enormous
energy and sense of fun and he moves fast and furious and often smiles as If he is Immensely enjoying his ultimate tragedy, but actually calling this play, An Arab Tragedy, he is smiling at the failed Arab leaders and their destructive  ever lasting Un-democratic rules.
Since the actor is having fun, we  the audience are more than willing to join him.

The play doesn't have the opening  famous monologue  delivered by Richard, Its actually 
Queen Margaret (Amal Omram) who  having been abandoned from power has the fury of  madness, curses and spit fire in the opening prologue and that's a very effective Image and a real unexpected change.  She often appears with the same power of fury and revenge throughout the evening.  Amal Omram is wonderful in that role.

As I mentioned earlier that this production has all the elements of modern technology and the character Buckingham played by Raymond el-Hosni is the Chief of staff of Image maker of Richard.  Some of the current events  projected by video simulcasts and events narrated by reporters who make funny faces and grin constantly as if they were all in a circus...
This kind of innovation in  Shakespear's tragedy can be annoying but here the effect is hilarious.

The Music here is a big part of this beautiful production.  The Ominous echo of the music
is everlasting and is the witness of the passage of turmoils in the Arab lands.
The stage is empty except some colorful cushions which the actors themselves bring on stage and sit on them and remove while leaving....This minimal staging gives the feeling of the vastness of desserts of empty hope and corrupt power.

Verses from the Qoran are recited many times and it has a blissful, soothing, exotic and alien effect on the psyche.

But underneath all the fun and the humor and the jokes, there is an Ominous tragedy lurking around which is not only of a Person such as Richard III:  but of the World.  We are constantly aware that something is not right with the World and its leaders and its Inhabitants and its religions and its false fundamentalist's rigid and narrow out look and destructive tendencies
which has kept the planet on a dangerous edge....

There is a constant message of peace in this production as the Qoutes from Qoran are being recited and numerous times the Islamic greeting,  ASSALAAM-O-ALYIKUM and WA-LYEIKUM SALAAM, meaning, "Peace be upon you." "And peace be upon you too,"  is uttered
but then the killing rampage also goes on after the message of peace....
Its Ironic if people and the leaders of this production only heard themselves clearly while uttering  the word, "Allah."  which actually was heard at least a 100 times during the show, they might stop the slaughter. But the message of peace...
was beautiful, soothing, comforting and at the same time disturbing because the events unfolding in the play were disturbing and eventually  deadly.

Beside the tragic events which had to be dealt with, after all the title of the play is Richard III:
An Arab Tragedy, the production was a lot of Un-expected fun and the sound of the spoken Arabic was just amazing, haunting and poetic.
Mr. Bassam and his whole ensemble including the musicians have done a brilliant job.

binasharif@earthlink.net





Friday, June 5, 2009

THEATER REVIEW
BY
BINA SHARIF

The Pearl Theater Company presents
              Tennessee Williams'
               VIEUX CARRÉ
Directed by Austin Pendleton

When Tennessee Williams decided to move away from his mother and his sister to escape his vague anxiety and his pain which was already accumulating in him as a young writer of poems and short stories, he ended up in a dilapidated New Orleans boarding house at 722 Toulouse Street in the French Quarter. The tenants of that shadowy boarding house became the lost, mournful, lonely and aspiring characters of his future plays.  The memory of those Isolated and sad human beings never left Tennessee alone...

Those people appeared in one form or the other in many of his plays and stories but finally in the play VIEUX CARRÉ  he decided that we the audience should meet them fully as he met them when he was 28 years old.

In VIEUX CARRÉ  Tennessee Williams' takes us to the dimly lit, dingy rooms of 
his youth's memory, the vulnerability of love and the pain of its broken threads,
the promise of a future and the fear of the lack of any ray of light to shine on it,
the impending terrors and loneliness of aging and death and the sexual Identity
and the ache of nostalgic sorrow for life's waste.

The boarding house at 722 Toulouse Street, in the Vieux Carré district of New Orleans is run by Mrs. Wire, (Carol Schultz) has tennants in it who are fighting a loosing battle of desire in the name of escape from this no man's land of loss
and hope,  resignation instead of despair over their demise of un-fullfilled promise or a glimmer of light which makes them travel back and forth to their own empty lives and dreams.

The boarding house has a young man, the writer, (Sean Mcnall) who narrates the stories of the rest of the dwellers of darkness and many times become part of the story which he is typing on his old type writer with a candle which many times he can't light because there are no matches to be found and the burnt out bulbs have never been replaced by the land lady.  So their lives are literally reflected from inside out in the dark shadows which cast a spell on the memories of the characters and the audience.

Vieux Carré  is a memory play.  Its about the youth and the old age of the artist
who is lonely and disillusioned and is fighting to Identify himself sexually.
There are runaways and old ladies who some times don't even remember who they are but recite beautiful poetry about their vanished glorious and refined past while they have nothing much to loose because they have lost it all.

There is a young troubled woman named Jane, (Rachel Botchan) who is a nice,
lovely young lady on the run and haunted by demons and is in love with a strip show hustler and a drug addict named Tye, ( Joseph Collins)  whom she wants to get rid of but keep wanting him to stay even after he subject her to emotional and sexual violence.
And than there is an old man, an ailing painter named, Nightingale, (George Morfogen) who draws portraits in a bar called two parrots bar and is dying of loneliness and begs the young writer for company and affection and sex.
To him the sexual encounter with any stranger is the answer to his eternal loneliness.  And then there is a maid named, nursie (Claudia Robinson) who is often needed for help by the land lady mostly to untangle the denziens of  their
emotional turmoil which is constant.

Tennessee Williams startted to write Vieux Carré  in 1939 and must have gone back to it for decades because it wasn't produced till 1977 on Broadway and after horrendously bad reviews closed within one week.

But almost every character in His later plays reflects the people of 722 Toulouse street,  forgotten people. lonely people, nostalgic people, vulnerable people, misunderstood people, people who have tons of poetry in them but no one to recite it to but to their own memory and to their own  Unforgettable  pastwhich
keeps coming back to haunt them

Vieux Carré  is Tennessee Williams most autobiographical play like Glass Menagerie. Its a sad and poetic story of lost souls who are seeking redemption and escape through Imagined promises of hope  and constant despair into one night stands and drugs and encounters with the wrong and rough loosers in the name of loneliness and emptiness of the soul.

The play is wonderfully directed by Austin Pendleton who captures beautifully the sadness, loss, dreams and poetry of these characters wounded hearts.
The play is hauntingly lit by Stephen Petrilli who creates shadows upon shadows
of hopes dimmed.

The whole cast is wonderful and captures the heart and the essence of Tennessee's mood and poetry but, George Morfogen breaks your heart with the ache of Immense loneliness.
Other brilliant performance is by Joseph Collins as Tye who destroys Jane with his sexual Intensity and passion of a man and a true hustler with a soul to sell.
Carol Schultz gives a fully accomplished performance as the land lady,  strong as a whip and loosing her mind at the same time.

Vieux Carré  is another superb performance by the great Pearl Theater Company and there is nothing more beautiful than Tennessee Williams poetry.  Give yourself a chance to hear it.

binasharif@earthlink.net

Saturday, March 7, 2009

OTELLO BY SHAKESPEARE

THEATER REVIEW
BY
BINA SHARIF

"Othello" is produced by The Theater for The New Audience at Duke Theater on 42nd Street.
Before I go any further I have to admit that I have never seen,"Othello" played better by any actor in my recent memory than by John Douglas Thompson.

He burns with passion and tenderness and elegance the moment he appears on stage and the love for his craft and his sensitivity for his character never ever fades.

"Othello, a tense and heart wrenching tragedy by Shakespeare, when done right leaves you with a sadness and sorrow so real as if you just watched real loss of life right in-front of you and you just sat there paralyzed with emotions and somehow could not prevent it.

Othello is a play about many things, power, love, race, jealousy, rage, suspicion and language. Shakespeare's words are so clear and powerful here that one can hardly breath being afraid that one might miss something.

The production is staged with great simplicity and lack of clutter and the words fly freely without obstacles. Staging is an example of minimalism which for me is always necessary in the theater so the extra props and furniture can get out of the way of the language and what other language does one need than beautiful poetry and wisdom of Shakespeare.
The play's director, Arin Arbus got a great grasp of this brilliant tragedy by Shakespeare and understood that nothing must come in the way of its poetry. She lets her actors feel the language and through that we, the audience are riveted.
Othello, a handsome General, a Moore marries a beautiful lady, Desdemona who is fragile, silky, passionate,honest and sincere wife and a lover and to doubt such a person is a tragedy in itself but Othello who is totally consumed by his love for Desdemona is so flawed in one aspect
that he believes the lies told to him by his venom ridden Iago who is consumed with jealousy of Othello's power and him being slighted by lack of promotion and tries to weave a story of false hood and deceit between Desdemona and Cassio which ends in the murder of Desdemona By Othello and the death of Othello by his own hand when he realizes, (alas! far too late) that it was an ugly lie and Desdemona never gave that token of his love to Cassio...it was all planned by Evil and manipulative Iago.
This production mostly because the way it was done, briskly and clearly and cleanly comes across as a brilliant production.
I can not say enough in praise of John Douglas Thompson. He has the grace, the dignity, the power, the voice. His voice has a special melody in it which suits the classical language.
He has the sensitivity in his body and in his eye and in his vocal cords...which wife would cheat on him ?
Desdemona played by, Juliet Rylance, (the daughter of Mark Rylance, the great actor himself whom I have seen many times at the Globe theater in London) is just superb. She is poised to be a queen who can break with sorrow like fragile petals of a jasmine flower which when crushed by cruelty is no more but still leaves its scent behind for our senses to grieve.
Emilia, Desdemona's companion and handmaiden and Iago's wife doesn't understand her husband's poisonous game till its too late is capably played by Kate Forbes.

If I had any problem with anything in this superb production it was with the actor Ned Eisenberg in the role of Iago. Though he successfully plants doubt and suspicion in Othello's mind about his Innocent wife, Desdemona and is absolutely rude and cruel and disrespectful towards his own wife, Emilia, I could not get deep into his viciousness and malignant nature.
At times I felt while he was winking at us often that his choices were too easy and cute. Some how he was unable to get under my skin in an awe-striking, ominous kind of a presence.

But in everyother way I was totally thrilled and absorbed in the tragedy and beauty of this production. I would just love to see it again.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Monday, February 2, 2009

I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG


MOVIE REVIEW

I 'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG

WHAT A MOVIE!
WHAT AN ACTRESS! CHRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS
WHAT A SCRIPT!
WHAT DIRECTION!

SUPERB
SAD
TENDER
FANTASTICALLY MOVING
TOUCHING
BEAUTIFUL
DESERVES MANY OSCARS

Friday, January 30, 2009

CHERRY ORCHARD BY ANTON CHEKHOV AT BAM


THEATER REVIEWBY
BINA SHARIF
CHERRY ORCHARD                             
BY CHEKHOV

DIRECTED BY SAM MENDES
AT BAM NEW YORK PRODUCED BY THE BRIDGE PROJECT.

Starring Simon Russell Beale (photo)

The Bridge project is a venture between America, England to do classics
featuring British, American and Irish actors here and abroad.
The new translation of Anton Chekhov's Cherry Orchard is by the brilliant and prolific
Tom Stoppard.
The Old Vic and Kevin Spacey are partners in this and future productions which will also
stage the play along with Winter's Tale to open in Feb.

The cast of Cherry Orchard includes brilliant actors such as Simon Russell Beale, Sinead Cusack and Ethan Hawke and Richard Easton.

Cherry Orchard, a dramatic comedy by one of the finest writers, Chekhov does not disappoint
in the fine and brilliant hands such as Sam Mendes, the director and Simon Russell Beale, one of the most charismatic actor with a booming and melodious voice.
This is at least the 10th time that I have been fortunate to see Simon Russel Beale and every time I am in awe of his talent and pleasantly haunted by his voice.
The last time I saw him on stage was at the National Theatre in London in Harold Pinter's
plays. Though Chekhov and Pinter are two different kinds of geniuses, Simon Russell Beale
shine bright in both. He has the technique and ability to make every part he plays as if it was exclusively written for him.
Simon Russell Beale who plays Lopakhin, a merchant who eventually buys the much loved
but un-manageable cherry orchard from Ranevskaya, a middle aged actress and a fading beauty
who spends most of her time in Paris and is crippled by the romance and the memory of her childhood attachement to the place but is un-able to be practical and sit and make a plan for the Orchard.
The characters portrayed here are as if their growth is stunted as nursery room spoiled children and the director Sam Mendes uses the props, Little chairs and little tables to a great affect. Ranevskaya, the grand dame played by Sinead Cusack fits the role perfectly well, she is petite enough to be a young girl and strong enough to never let go of her childhood memories of that very nursery and her grief of the loss of her young son who drowned in the lake.
For these very reasons she never want to part with her estate but Chekhov's play reveals how the times were changing at that very time for a change to build more and become more profitable at the expanse of demolition of a memory even if its haunting.
Lopakhin, the merchant played by Simon Russell Beale who is madly in love with Ranevskaya
is much more practical who has the means to buy the property, converts it into summer cottages for the tourists and still merry Ranevskaya, (Hope against hope) so she can have her
estate in a different form and still live in her native country. But this is not how it works in Chekhov's land.
Dreams stay as dreams, desires remain un-fullfilled, people are in love with the wrong person,
nostalgia of the past becomes the present, characters drown their sorrow and guilt in vodka and Masha of three sisters never get to Moscow.

The staging of the play is just fantastic. With very little props and furniture and no sign of a single cherry blossom, Sam Mendes direction moves forward smoothly. Set which consists of
gorgeous colorful carpets and a beautiful chandelier in the second act breaths with the confused
emotions of the characters and gives a haunting feelings of the glamour of the past.
Ethan Hawke as Trofimov, a student who is very much for the progress and change of the future also is very good but the show belongs to Simon Russell Beale. He is an enormous present on stage and has the strength, humor and vocal ability of a master crafts man.
Every moment he is on stage is to be cherished.
Cherry Orchard is enjoyable and elegant and lives with you as a lingering melodious nostalgia of a beautiful memory of the past.


ARTS INTERNATIONAL 
Editor/Publisher: Bina Sharif

ARTS INTERNATIONAL covers THEATER, FILM, VISUAL ARTS, CUISINE, AND LITERATURE