BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES AT BAM'S NEW WAVE FESTIVAL

                         BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES AT BAM'S NEW WAVE FESTIVAL

Barber shops in many parts of the world especially in Asia and Africa are the regular meeting places

for men.  They can't wait to get there and beside having their hair cut enjoy an amazingly relaxed,

intimate and fun atmosphere where they express themselves freely about all kinds of things dear to

them.

In Inua Ellams's incredibly vibrant production of Barber Shop Chronicles' from London's National

Theater, a big hit which has been traveling in Britain and now in United States is a testimony of the

real barber shops and what takes place there.

This production has the incredible energy of a fast moving traveller without a pause.  The set is vast and fluid, the actors are on  cocaine high energy, they dance, they sing, they laugh, they entertain, they cut hair, they move their barber shop moveable chairs fast and furious to make the play move to
a different location without any other change of scenery and make it absolutely effective.

When the show hasn't begun yet, they actually begin entertaining, welcoming audience members to be part of their play.  They invite them onto the set, they take selfies, they make them sit on their chairs and mime cutting their hair.  A very welcoming and comforting gesture and we the audience members are instantly involved.

The whole company is totally relaxed and are a great fun even when they express many episodes of pain which can give any body a pause but everything is handled with great poetry, song  and movement.

When the show opens, they are in Lagos, Nigeria and its 6am.  A customers knocks and knocks
and wake up the barber and kind of order/request for the finest haircut like a car speeding in a race.
When it comes to pay, he says, "I am short of cash." He gets chased and then let go...

The scene moves to  other locations, like London, and five other cities in Africa.  There is
a clock on the wall which informs us of different time zones and every time the scene changes there
descend a sculpture made of wire and beautifully lit in magenta blue depicting a different part of the globe and the actors move with great energy and thrill with the hip-hop music in the back ground.

The play is not only a dance and the movement piece taking place all over Africa. It's a very deep and complex tale of culture, language, relationships and tradition of the people who live there, who migrated to the West, people who came back, people who never came back but never escaped their past, never forgot their language, never stopped missing their culture and their language.

The amazing thing about the Barber Shop Chronicles' is how easily the customers and their barbers
discuss the intimate stories of their lives.  Them traveling to the foreign countries, their love and lack of love from their fathers, their ambitions and dreams, their unending pain with such humor, with such gossipy feel, with such ease that it's so fluidly and smoothly gets into our consciousness and we feel for them and want to sing and dance with them as well.

The ensemble seems like they are all travelers and where ever they go they take their stories with them and are looking for an audience and the Barber Shop becomes their audience.  It's that intimacy of the same culture and language and customs which make them open up and talk about any thing and everything.

They discuss politics, a must, their leaders, Mandela, a father figure in the culture of missing fathers, they make fun of their language as well as are very proud of it, they talk about going abroad, making a dream come true, escaping their past and realize at the same time that they can never escape anything inherent in their genes.

It seems a heavy play but it's not at all.  That's the beauty of it all.  Incredibly important topics are being talked about, gossiped about, migration is discussed, the difficulties of leaving home, coming back, never coming back, all is being talked about but we never feel the heaviness of all that.  It
never seems like a serious tragic loss.  The greatest success of this play is that with the serious depth of its complexity it's the most fun, fast and furious play in its entirety.

There is a very funny sequence about how in the West the importance of time has been valued, how every bit of time has its own schedule but in Africa when one is supposed to arrive at 1pm, it's normal to arrive at 3pm.  How true that is in South East Asia as well. People are surprised when anything starts on time.

Barber shop is superbly directed byBijan Sheibani and the movement director, Aline David has done
a great job. A wire model of earth lit in a blue light and suspended from above is by genius, Rae Smith.

REVIEWED
BY
BINA SHARIF

artsinternational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell: 212-260-6207
.www.facebook.com

THE GREAT TAMER: A DANCE/PERFORMANCE PIECE AT BAM, PART OF NEW WAVE FESTIVAL

THE GREAT TAMER:  A DANCE/PERFORMANCE ART PIECE AT BAM.

THE GREAT TAMER
CONCEIVED and DIRECTED
by
DIMITRIS PAPAIOANNOU

To Describe The Great Tamer in one sentence or two or even in a paragraph would be extremely

difficult because its such a complex, multilayered performance encompassing life and death and all

that happens in-between.  It's about mythology, mortality, physicality, spirituality and the fragility

of life.

On a vast slanting steel grey stage made of removable black and white sheets, this complex art/dance/

performance piece unfolds.

A man dressed in black walks on stage and slowly starts to take his clothes off. Then he lies down as

if he is on the roof of his house to get some sun.

Another man again dressed in black comes on stage and covers him

with a very lightweight white sheet.  Then the third man comes and picks up one of those removable

panels and with great ability shake it a bit and then let it drop.  That makes the sheet covering the

naked man floats away.  This activity is repeated a few times and is brilliantly done and is

mesmerizing to watch.

Many more realistic, surrealistic and metaphorical sequences occur.  The brilliant cast of dancers,

acrobats, gymnasts and performance artists keep going tirelessly with such agility that one marvels at

the excellence and the amazing power of human body in all it's forms, in it's suffering, in it's joy and

the spirit of adventure and surprise.  Most of the time the men and women are nude without a hint

of self consciousness.

The do the most difficult movements in extremely vulnerable positions takes a lot of expertise.

They open the panels and dig underneath as if they are preparing for a burial.

They open another panel and discover water, in which they bathe. They even find body parts, an arm

sticking out, or part of a leg and now and then our concept of their location changes.

Are they in a an ancient grave yard?  Are they in a field where soon vegetation will appear in the

form of sticky darts representing a corn field?  or flora of brilliant yellow colors representing spring

time when everything blooms and love of life smiles on everything.

The Great Tamer is very philosophical and that makes sense.  After all it's being created by a

brilliant Greek who also has incredible sense of humor and child like attitude and a sense of

innocence. Sometimes one feels as if grown up children are playing games and having fun.

Sometime it seems like as if the creator and the performers are making fun of everything serious

in life which bogs us down,  depicting the delicate moments of un-predictable and unbalanced life.

At one point a performer tries to balance himself on a world glob soon to be crashed on the floor

with other performers.

Performers built and then destroy everything and pick up the pieces and put them in the garbage bags

and throw them away. Everything seems meaningless and immensely serious and ominous at the

same exact moment.

The performers, men and women don't seem human in their physical power and agility but

superhuman and then they lose balance and fall apart right in-front of our eyes.

The whole show is an unending enjoyable metaphor.    Things are visible as well as hidden.

Meanings are obvious and complex beyond our comprehension.

The whole show is accompanied by Johann Strauss's stunningly beautiful, "Blue Danube"  waltz

on the sound track.

There are impressions of classic European art.    Chorus of actors add white collars and instantly

become doctors dissecting a nude human body, thus the representation of Rembrandt's, " Anatomy

lesson."  Then they feast on human intestine which they have pulled out during the dissection.

The show doesn't have one straight story line but it's rich with many images which excites

our imagination and we create our own stories and how many shows can make you so creative,

so imaginative and so aware of the fragility of life which has the promise of destruction and renewal

at the same time.  The last moment in the show has total disintegration of a skeleton mounted

on another panel reminding us of the delicacy of life and we should just be happy and thankful

of breathing.  This show makes us aware of, "Breath." The last breath,  before we are no more.

Not to be gloomy but this awareness is essential.

REVIEWED
BY
BINA SHARIF
artsinternational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell: 212-260-6207
www. facebook.com

BACCHAE: PRELUDE TO A PURGE AT BAM

BACCHAE: PRELUDE TO A PURGE AT BAM AS PART OF NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL

Marlene Monteiro Freitas -Bacchae is a fun ensemble of trumpet players who also dance and dancers who dance, sing and speak. The performers are intense and have expressions of madness, wearing mask like make up to make them look even more grotesque but do not come much closer to Euripides' tragedy.  Having said that what they are doing here, abstract themes, abstract expressions and incredibly moving movements in their own way are superb.
Its any artist's right to take on classical works and make their own interpretations and incorporate their
own take into it and that way it's fascinating to have some themes and ideas still breathing in their new work.  There are some hints of Euripides Bacchae which still exits in this wonderful dance piece, such as a blind man being led and in a video where a woman give birth which evokes the birth of Dionysus, and the Percussions
and the trumpets have the effects of mayhem and madness and a feeling of revenge.
I loved the music and the way the performers moved and flowed effortlessly with it.

In this Bacchae all rules are broken.  It's free flowing fun and lack of inhibition.  This atmosphere
must be a lot of fun for children as it was proven with a constant laughter of some children in the audience.  The atmosphere is of a festive group of people who can manipulate any one for their own pleasure and creative energy and this troupe has enormous vitality to carry it through.  They run around, up and down, dance, sing and do enormously difficult twists and turns for two hours without an intermission.

For a long while I waited for some more moments of relevance to Euripides's Bacchae but then I gave up and started to enjoy what was presented to me in a twisted but in a joyful way and with that
justification I began to get involved fully like the performers were in this very innovative
and pleasurable dance piece.

REVIEWED
BY
BINA SHARIF
artsinternational.blogspot.com
Cell: 212-260-6207
binashariff@gmail.com
www.facebook.com

MAKE BELIEVE ON BROADWAY 2019

MAKE BELIEVE on BROADWAY 2019
    
ONLY MAKE BELIEVE is a non profit organization that creates and performs interactive
theatre for children in hospital, care facilities and special education programs throughout New York and Washington. Dena Hammerstein started it in the memory of her late husband James Hammerstein.

Dena started this program in 1999.  On November 4 the organization celebrated the 20th year at a gala award ceremony on Broadway with star studded  participants, actors such as Sir Ian Mckellen,
David G. Leitch, Allan Cumming, Ambassador theatre Group and many many other talented musicians, acrobats and singers from Broadway shows.

 Beside the event's entertainment value this event was the most Important evening on Broadway I have ever attended.  To be honest I had no Idea of Only make believe program and boy am I ashamed and thrilled as well to be part of one of the most moving and human event which has been helping children with chronic illnesses and disabilities and introducing them to theater where actors and singers come to them and help them to experience joy and happiness beside their misfortune.  I think Dena Hammerstein deserves all the awards and thanks for doing such an essential
deed and many other people who are in charge of all the units in those facilities which takes care of those lovely children all over the city and in Washington.

There were so many wonderful speeches, uplifting comments and songs from different Broadway shows, such as, book of Mormon and the band was amazing.  But the most moving  for me was the documentary of children in a hospital unit enjoying the various acts performed by the actors.
What a great concept to bring theater to the sick children and children are not analytical and  theater critics, they are just innocent children who cherish those moments of fun, excitement and costumes and the colors and the music.  All that makes them dream of a better morning, I am sure of that.
So in this short life the ones who are able and fortunate enough to help the sick and disabled are blessed as well.  Just to have an image how to help the children in a hospital unit where the sick might at times lose hope, to bring hope of another beautiful day in their lives.  I am so impressed and thankful to Dena and every one else involved to create this organization and to be invited.

Besides many other high lights of the evening, to see Sir Ian Mckellen in person was just a moment of great thrill.  He is one of the most incredible actor alive.  I try to see everything he does but it's not possible but whatever I have seen, I have never been able to take it out of my mind and my heart.
Wild Honey by Chekhov,  at the National Theater of London, No man's land by Pinter, Waiting for Godot by Beckett, on Broadway to name a very few. But he has done thousands of shows in his long lasting career and he was going to perform his one man show which he cancelled in London for one night at the Hudson Theater in NY and donating the money to Only Make Believe.  Amazing generosity of spirit.  Another high light was the two acrobats, one of them disabled perform with
perfection and energy and spirit.  Amazing performers as well.

I ma so thrilled to be Introduced to this incredibly Important event and I wish not to miss any  in the future

On a very personal note, this evening brought back lots of memories for me especially about children.
I have to confess that I am also an MD from Pakistan and I did my one year residency in Pediatric
hospital in Lahore Pakistan. I loved those children and would spend hours upon hours with them
in the hospital ward even when I was off duty. When I saw the film of those children enjoying
the theater which was brought to them it made me sad and happy at the same time.  Sad because I didn't practice medicine in America but happy that I am involved in all aspects of creative theater. At times I have felt guilty in the past for abandoning those children but the night of Nov 4 at the Schoenfeld Theatre I felt as if I was contributing to Only Make Believe myself by being in the theater and one day maybe I will go to those hospitals and tell the children some joyful stories.

WRITTEN
BY
BINA SHARIF
artsinternational.blogspot.com
Cell: 212-260-6207
email: binashariff@gmail.com
www.facebook.com

"INOAH" . DANCE: AT BAM, PART OF NEW WAVE FESTIVAL

"INOAH" A DANCE PIECE AT BAM, PART OF NEW WAVE FESTIVAL

"I*NOAH" at BAM
 Grupo de Rua's  had its debut at Bam on Thursday

The choreographer of this dance performance is Bruno Beltrao and the lighting designer is Renato
Machado. When the show opens on this vast stage it's so darkly lit that it's hard to concentrate on two figures clad in black highlighting the blackness and darkness of this piece.

There is nice little focussed light on these two dancers who stand still for a while and then starts to move.  They twist and turn their arms and their bodies in a mesmerizing way. They don't seem like dancing but moving in space while still standing still. If they were little less darkly lit it would be
easier to watch them but our eyes take a long moment to adjust to the darkness which surrounds the whole stage.

But I guess the bleakness of the atmosphere is relevant to the piece.  It seems like the story of street
 dance mixed with the hip-hop in urban atmosphere.  The dancers have incredible ability to slide on
, suddenly stopping and  going off stage as if they are gliding effortlessly on ice.  They are  all men and  their bodies are very taught and muscular evoking man power.  The background sounds, the sounding score is a kind of monotonous rumble.  The score is by Felipe Storino. The movements of this dance are very hip-hop style, sliding and tumbling, suddenly stopping and leaving and other performers entering sliding on heads, twist and turn and then suddenly come to a halt, performers frozen in strange positions.  Some time they stay like that for a very long time.  This show is brilliant,
created by a great talent but needs a lot of dedication on the part of the audience to watch. The movements of  dancers are so varied and seem painful as if they are suffering from some torturous regime.  It does capture fully the urban atmosphere and culture where there is always an immediate danger of a fight breaking up amongst the inhabitants.  This show represents amazing talent though the show is confusing at times.  More of a movement and performance piece than a regular dance with a coherent story.  I did enjoy the power of dancers over their bodies and their incredible skill and energy.

REVIEWED
BY
BINA SHARIF
artsinternational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell: 212-260-6207
www.facebook.com

SWAN LAKE/ Loch na hEla at BAM

                                   Rachel Poirier in "Swan Lake/Loch na hEala" at BAM

NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL

AT BAM

Swan LaKe/Loch na hEala

Written, Choreographed and Directed

By

Michael Keegan-Dolan : A dance and theater piece

The very first scene of this fascinating play has a man with a rope tied to his neck which is tethered

to a cinder block.  The man moves around in circles and makes noises as if he had been turned into

a goat.  At least that's how I saw it and immediately related this scene to the Irish suffering and persecution for thousand upon thousands of years.  For me that was a metaphor for human torture

in Ireland.

This man/goat is played by Mikel Murfi.  He is only in his underwear paces around agonizingly.

Then after a while three men dressed in black clothes and black hats come near him and dance around making the

so called animal extremely un-comfortable.  As they come too close to him he is extremely frightened and he cries and make shrilled noises, then the three men called, Watchers grab hold of him, lay him down, pour water on him (It made me feel like water torture) but actually they were giving him a mini  bath and then giving him a tough massage with red towels, the color of blood , dress him up and make him sit down on a chair. Then he asks for a cup of tea.  "I won't say a word until I have a cup of tea."  I loved that, he must be so cold.  He starts to tell us a story of Jimmy O' Reiilly (Alexander Leonhartsberger) who had been extremely depressed since the death of his father and his mother who in a Wheelchair  Nancy ( Elizabeth Cameron Dalman ) gives him his late  father's loaded gun for his 36th birthday after her repeated failed efforts for him to get out of his sunken state and meet some woman.

This Swan Lake has no resemblance to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake but it has the most incredible music

by the Dublin band Slow Moving Clouds. It's performed live by three musicians.  It is hypnotic, and stirring with an Irish dirge which creates incredible sense of desire as well as sadness of the incompletion of that very desire. I looked to buy a CD of this haunting music in the lobby afterwards but there was none being sold. While I was listening to this beautiful music which creates a feeling of longing, an ever lasting longing, I went back to the first scene about my concept of Irish suffering because this music and this performance/dance and theater piece is exactly about that.

it has the feel of morality tale of religious persecution, subjugation, oppression of people especially women and the graet human spirit of survival.

A priest comes into the story. The priest played by Micheal Murfi assaults a young woman Finola,

Rachel Poirier, a wonderful dancer and the star of the show) and then being afraid that she will talk, 

puts a curse on her and her three sisters to turn into, "filthy Animal."  Now they live at the edge of

the lake and these are the Swans in this play...young women in white dresses, white wings and wearing black wings after the priest's curse. Their movements and their dance including the men  as well are just priceless. 

One evening Jimmy takes his gun out and goes to the lake to kill himself and at that exact moment

a woman/swan appears suddenly to prevent him to kill himself.  He falls in love with her, its Finola

and they dance together, a dance of joy and liberation and freedom at last.  There are many highlights

in this majestic ballet/dance/performance but this one is the most heartfelt because by this time we want something beautiful to happen for Finola and Jimmy.

This Swan Lake is difficult to describe in simple terms because it encompasses so much history, folklore and mythology in 75 minutes.  I wish it went on and on especially the most incredible and joyful last scene, the last dance in the show with tons of beautiful white goose feathers also dancing with the dancers and falling like pure white snow flaks all over the stage and all over the first few rows of the audience.  It was a moment to rejoice and put all the anguish, oppression and history of Ireland behind.

Michael Keegan-Dolan is one of the most fabulous choreographer/writer and director I have encountered.  This is his first work I have experienced and it won't be the last. The whole cast is marvelous, very talented and appealing. Rachel Poirier is superb. A thrilling experience for me.

I also love everything Irish.  I was in Dublin three times this year and I breathed poetry, literature/

humor/pain/joy and enormous history every minute and kept going back...Irish have great humor and great poetry and a sense of survival  and great music in them and all of it is  in Micael Keegan-Dolan's Swan Lake/Loch na hEala.

REVIEWED

BY

BINA SHARIF

artsinternational.blogspot.com

email: binashariff@gmail.com

Cell; 212-260-6207

www.facebook.com

WHY? by peter brook AT THEATRE FOR A NEW AUDIENCE

Actors: Hayley Carmichael and Kathryn Hunter

THEATRE FOR A NEW AUDIENCE
presents
C.I.C.T. / Theatre des Bouffes du Nord

WHY?

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY
Peter Brook and Marie-Helene Estienne
with
Hayley Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter, and Marcello Magni

Peter Brook is one of the most talented International Theater Director. He is an expert in
various genres: Opera, writing, theater, cinema.  He is a minimalist.  His book called
'THE EMPTY SPACE" Is a bible for directors especially who appreciate very little stuff on stage.
Every actor has been inthralled for decades by Peter Brook.  He is a philosopher as well.  All his plays seem simple with just a carpet on stage and a few stools or small chairs.  Thats' it.
Believe me a carpet makes the set, elegant, sophisticated and exotic like his actors.  He has actors from all over the planet.  Talking about diversity in the theater, no one can beat Peter Brook.

But his plays are not simple, they are loaded with meaning, drama, emotions, politics, religion,
the plight of civilization. WHY?  is all that and more.

Actors simply tells us that when god created humanity, humanity got bored quickly and then
for their amusement god created theater which provided joy and eventually danger.
Actors become real actors on stage and demonstrate without any hint of self importance how to be a real actor.  How to play drunk for an example.  Most of the actors playing drunk in ordinary drama
try to be drunk, they are wobbly as if they can't walk because they are playing drunk.  But the real
great acting playing drunk involves being still.   in WHY? one of the actor plays drunk.
He is trying to un-lock his door with his key but can never locate the key hole eventually the keys fall down but he can't pick them up, he gestures towards the audience in the first row to pick them up and
give it to him but the audience member picks up the keys and throw them at him, he can't catch them,
keys fall on the floor again...this whole scene becomes a great lesson in marvelous acting lesson
and is hilarious at the same time.

All the actors in the show are superb. They can move, they can dance, they can sing.  Great talented cast,  a joy to watch.

Then play turns into the danger part of the theater.  It deals with great actors and directors in Communist countries, in this case Soviet Union where everything is censored and theater is considered dangerous and the people doing it as well.  Well known theater directors and their wives are being arrested, tortured and killed.  So the philosophy of the play WHY?  is a question.
Why should such creative imagination which gives such joy is a punishable act? and why life should be like that? Why we always have to pay a price for having any kind of fun and joy... Why? the eventual punishment?

WHY? is an amazing play, it raises so many important questions which have no answers, it's life.
In life one doesn't know when a moment of great happiness will turn into a dangerous tragedy.

I love Peter Brook.  I have always loved him.  When I was living in London long time ago studying
acting, I came upon his book, The Empty Space and that is my bible  now and I hate clutter on stage.
Minimalism breathes, moves, and smells freshness.  When ever there is an empty space one wants to get up and dance...and free movement on stage without bumping into furniture is pure bliss in the theater.

REVIEWED BY
BINA SHARIF
artsinternational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell; 212-260-6207

NOTES ON MY MOTHER'S DECLINE NYTW (NEXT DOOR)

Actors: Caroline Lagerfelt and Ari Fliakos

DIRECTED BY: KNUD ADAMS
AT
NYTW (NEXT DOOR)

NOTES ON MY MOTHER'S DECLINE is an autobiographical play about a mother  who is ill
and her declining health is being watched by her son who might be in his late thirties or early forties.
The audience sits on both sides of the stage giving it an intimate feeling.  There is nice big bed with white bed cover.  The son, named Andy (Ari Fliakos) narrates the play.
Mother (Caroline Langerfelt) walks   in a nice pink nightgown and lies down on the bed, her head propped up by pillows.

The son tells us about his mothers routine.  "She smokes.  She smokes."  He repeats often with the
great sense of detachment. He is also miked and his sound adds another layer of emotional distance
from his mother.  I guess since the play is autobiographical perhaps the son was never so intimate
with his mother but some how we want him to be, we want him to be more involved with his emotions of grief because we all know even from the title of the play that the mother is going to die soon.  He tells us about the caretaker who is very nice but eventually steals money from her.

Mother lives in the same apt in the East Village where she raised her son.  The son also lives close by.
Mother complains that he doesn't visit so often.  They don't talk directly to each other.  Mother is
upbeat and jovial.  The son is very serious, serious but not sad, not openly sad, maybe trying not
to be sad but this way the play doesn't have any looming sense of loss.  I didn't share the son's grief
because he didn't want to share it.  Play stayed dry emotionally. Towards the end the son takes the
wire of. Maybe at this time he wants to share his real voice with some tenderness.

I think the play would work much better if it was a radio play with some sound effects added.
Caroline Lagerfelt was excellent. She had the wit, the humor, the sense of impending tragedy
and love of life. We find out during the course of the play that she loved theater.

The set by Marsha Ginsberg is effective.  The lights by Oona Curley not so.  Lights are directed more  towards the audience which was annoying.  They should have been more focussed on the
actors but since there were audience on both side of the stage that was the best they could do.
I wish the son was more grief stricken.  I am not being morbid but after-all his mother was dying.
this play could have made me cry but my eyes stayed dry.  I felt for the mother but not for the son
and I didn't like him being miked.  I love natural voice and it would have worked much better because the place small and intimate.

REVIEWED
BY
BINA SHARIF

artsinternational,logspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell; 212-260-6207

MOTE BOOKS CONTINUES

NOTE BOOKS CONTINUES

DREAM PLAY'S THERAPY

BY

BINA SHARIF

TO BE PRODUCED AT

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
JAN 9---JAN 26

CAST:  KEVIN MITCHELL MARTIN
             BINA SHARIF

NOTES:

TO BE INCLUDED:

PREDICTION
FUN PLAY
LEAK
SYBIL'S DESPAIR
REPAIR BILLS UNDER THE DOOR
KNOCKING AT DOOR, MULTIPLE
BANGING ON THE PIPES, MULTIPLE TIMES
MUSIC FROM THE MOVIE PSYCHO...SHOWER SCENE

"NOW HE HAS A REAL LEAK AND ITS A RED LEAK..."

REVIEW KING LEAR

William Shakespeare’s “King Lear” is the greatest tragedy. It comes to Broadway with the mighty brilliant and extraordinary Glenda Jackson. She appeared in the same title role at London's Old Vic in 2016. We are blessed to have her here in New York now.

The story of King Lear is the tragedy of an old and weary king who decides to retire and just live with his daughters. He has three daughters, Goneril (Elizabeth Marvel), Regan (Aisling O'Sullivan) and Cordelia (Ruth Wilson) and he wants to divide his kingdom amongst them with a condition. They must declare their love for him openly and in front of everyone. Goneril and Regan uses flowery language and praise him to the heavens but Cordelia the youngest and the most sincere daughter speaks the truth and tells him that she will love him as much as a daughter should love her father who brought her up, loved and fed her, and nothing more. The king is outraged and banishes her. The Earl of Kent (John Douglas Thompson) who wants to speak on Cordelia's behalf is also banished.

King Lear's daughters show their ugly faces and intent eventually. They treat the old king abominably, reduce his staff from one hundred men to almost one. This causes him to storm out on one of the worst stormy nights. The king is now homeless on a heath soaked by the rain and hail. He is only accompanied by his fool (Ruth Wilson in a double role) and the Earl of Kent disguised as a servant, who takes him to a cave for shelter. Also in the cave are the King’s old friend the Earl of Gloucester (Jayne Houdyshell) who is also abandoned and unbeknownst to Gloucester is his legitimate son Edgar in the guise of Mad Tom (Sean Carvajal).

King Lear's tragedy unfolds by making one foolish mistake to satisfy his royal ego and he now realizes how big a mistake it was and how he banished his young and loving daughter Cordelia for not flattering him falsely. Eventually Cordelia who is married to the king of France comes back to rescue her father.

I cherish this play, but not the way it has been staged here. The play is directed by San Gold who loves to overcrowd the stage. There are tables, chairs, flags, even a life size ceramic Lion near Lears throne and roaming musicians.

Lear's staff is sipping tea and drinking champagne all along, and I am wondering: What's the occasion? What are they celebrating?

All this stage business doesn't work. Actually it distracts.

But luckily we have Glenda Jackson here who surmounts every obstacle and howls like a tiger herself with such clarity and control and concentration that we need no other fake lion for effects.

Every word Ms. Jackson speaks is like jewels and pearls coming out of her mouth. She is small and very fragile but her performance is the most powerful I have ever seen on any stage in the world. I am amazed that she is not nominated for a Tony award.

Other actors who give wonderful performances are, John Douglas Thompson, Ruth Wilson in both roles and Jayne Houdyshell.

Elizabeth Marvel and Aisling O' Sullivan are not very convincing as real sisters
because of their varied accents.

The production also has a string quartet with original music by Philip Glass. This is totally unnecessary.

But once again, the biggest problem for me in this production is the set. The stage is so loaded with extra stuff that if Glenda Jackson wasn't a powerhouse we will never find her, she would be hidden behind the lion. But how can one hide a real lion of talent behind a fake ceramic one?

This is the third time I have seen Ms. Jackson on stage, “Strange Interlude”, “Three Tall Women” and now in” King Lear” as Lear and Oh! boy, I am a real lucky and blessed woman.
Beyond HAPPY FACE for Glenda Jackson and MIXED FACE for the production.

REVIEW : 17 BORDER CROSSINGS

 In, "17 BORDER CROSSINGS" Thaddeus Phillips, performer/writer/traveller speaks many languages such as Spanish, French, Portuguese,Czech which is a great ability and a source of convenience while covering extensive travels in many parts of the world where all these languages come in handy.

Mr. Phillips is on an almost bare stage with the exception of a desk and a chair which he uses very effectively in different scenes and in different parts of the world, but the way the show is written, performed and directed, there is no hint of the purpose of his travels.

Are these pleasure trips? Is he a journalist? Travelling on behalf of a company who is paying all the expenses? I assumed that these trips must be holidays.

Also it is not clear if the character he created is travelling or Thaddeus, the writer himself is the traveller? And if this show is autobiographical I would be curious to find out what kind of job Mr.Phillips has in order to pay for all those travels but I guess that's not the point of the show.

Concentrating on the title of the show, the show seems like it's about borders and border crossings and that's where the show has a problem.In today's world when we think about or talk about borders some kind of difficult feelings of anxiety and terror crosses our mind and we pray for safe crossing.

At this time of our lives the talk of border security and it's imagined difficulties, to say the least, is a reason sometimes for us not to go to the difficult parts of the world, but this writer/performer is ambitious and every time there is a hint of any difficulty at the border he just avoids expressing it or even encountering it. He just moves on to the next venture.

After a while the show seems like a showcase for different languages which the writer/performer speaks and we find that interesting and admirable but we want to face the reality of the times and encounter some kind of difficulty entering all these troubled places.

Everything in this show is light and somewhat amusing. Trust me, we don't want
the traveller to go through hell, but we do need to learn a bit more about serious issues dealing with so many border crossings.

Towards the end of his travels when he arrives at Newark airport, he is confronted by homeland security about a stamp on his passport from Cuba. He is detained for 6 hours...and then nothing. We are unable to know how he was released ?

Throughout the show we travel with him but don't learn much about the places we travel to and how difficult it is to cross all those borders.

Lighting design here is brilliant and so are the sound effects. Thaddeus Phillips is also a decent performer but the problem is in the conception of the show.
It needs a sense of danger.
MIXED LEADING TOWARDS ORDINARY except sound, lights and the bare set.

TRIAL OF MISS SURATT. REVIEW

BINA SHARIF:
The players in “The Trial of Mrs. Surratt” are already on stage when the audience enters. It's a huge cast of wandering players and they do wander around, jumping up and down on the benches, tables, running back and forth as if they are trying to catch a thief and yes, they are. They are trying to catch a murderer who shot president Lincoln and then ran away.

This play is mixed with historical facts (Not so clear) with fiction causing as much confusion as the wandering players trying to create chaos but instead are lost on stage. After a long time (Seems much longer ) the actors begin their dialogue.

For a while I thought this play is going to be a wordless experimental, performance piece. I was finally relieved when the words were spoken but most of the time I couldn't concentrate on the main action because there was lots of unnecessary secondary action taking place in the background.

The play should concentrate on Mrs. Surratt and the circumstances which made her a suspect in the Lincoln assassination. Mrs. Surratt was thought to have been sheltering rebel soldiers.

Her son, Johnny Surratt, was considered a suspect because he was friends to Booth. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t even in town when Lincoln was shot so Johnny made sure to stay away and elude capture.

Mary Surratt ( the most solid actress in the play) is persistent about her innocence but she is being tried not in the civil court but in an army tribunal where Judge Holt and the war secretary Edwin Stanton (another good actor) are determined to find her guilty from the very beginning.

Since the play has mixed up the facts and the fiction together my understanding of this particular play is not so precise either. There is lots of talk about Catholics not in a good way and I wondered if the assassin was a Catholic.

There were very strong impressions of John Wilkes Booth and his friends being gay. It doesn't matter if they were, but questions were raised which somehow can change the intention and the depiction of historical facts.

There were some good things in the show. I liked the music and the lights were very good but my main objection towards this show is that I couldn't concentrate on the words being spoken and I missed many important details in the play, but after the show, at the talk back the director informed us after I asked some questions about the distractions, she told us that the author didn't mind if we do miss some details because no matter what happens, the life still goes on.

I think there was too much life going on which was not so interesting after a while. I wish the author and the director concentrated more on the script and the real facts of the tragedy enfolding.
UNHAPPY FACE

ESTADO VEGETAL BY MANUELA IFANTE AT Baryshnikov Arts Center

ESTADO VEGETAL BY MANUELA INFANTE AT BAC, NYC

Director: Manuela Infante
Dramaturgy: Manuela Infante and Marcela Salinas
Performer; Marcela Salinas
Set, costume and ligting design: Rocio Hernandez
Voice recording: Pol del Sur
Production:  Carmina Infante

Chilean Director Manuela Infante deals with the Plant Intelligence and communication in this fascinating play, Estado Vegetal. The philosophy of plant intelligence and it's relationship with humans and other plants is based on Philosopher Michael Mardar's real world research.
The play is very experimental and at times the script is confusing.  There are some unexplored ideas
that, " stillness is better than movemments." and, "The trees have stronger will to stand still in the face of danger." Well! we also believe that to live, we have to move, motion and life are also connected.  But I do believe that the silent things such as the plants, trees and flowers do speak to us somehow by remaining silent and still at the same time.

Trees and their branches move with the wind, blossoms fall down on the ground when the rain and wind comes and cover the green grass with their beautiful magenta colors, they hiss and weep at their early fall.  So we do believe somehow that there is some kind of dialogue going on between the human beings and flora but to stage this concept and bring it to life to live audience can be difficult but not in this play because there is a stunning performer, Marcela Salinas who is so enormously talented that and fills the stage with her energy, her dedication and her craft that we forget all the philosophies and just watch her brilliance throughout the play.

This is how the experimental and dreamy story of Estado Vegetal goes. There is a motorcycle
accident crashing into a tree. Marcela Salinas, the actress plays multiple roles as the narrator, the grief
stricken mother of the young man who crashed into the tree, the manager incharge of green spaces, a gossipy aunt and a small girl who is a bit handicapped and mentally slow.

Salinas, a superb actress who portrys all these characters fully with her voice, her movements and
her facial expressions.  The play, vegetative state implies in a very poetic and visual way the advantages of plants and trees and their life compared at the same kind of level as people.
The play seems confusing but fascinating to watch.  It has great visuals and wonderfully complex sound design.  Salinas uses a looper pedal, records her own voice and play it back in different volumes. She arranges and rearranges the plants and at some point transform into one.
She is constantly moving around never out of whatever character she is playing.

The show is a very different but very satisfying because of the actress Marcela Salinas.  Her energy, her passion, her voice and her deep conviction about the characters she is playing is just marvelous.
Without understanding every bit of the script,  I really enjoyed the performance, the set, the sound
and the presence of so many green and beautiful plants on stage.

REVIEWED BY BINA SHARIF FOR artsinternational
Bina Saharif, Editor/publisher: artsinternational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell:212-260-6207
www.facebook.com

"DIONYSUS WAS SUCH A NICE MAN" AT WILMA THEATER

"DIONYSUS WAS SUCH A NICE MAN" AT WILMA THEATER
Written by : kate Tarker
Directed by Dominique Serrand
Set by Kristen Robinson

"Dionysus was such a nice man" is kind of based on Greek Myth but it's content is much more contemporary except some names and refrences similar to the Greek classic mythology.
There is a family of a shepard Polybus (Luverne Seifert) his wife, Merope (Melanye Finister) his daughter, Alcinoe (Taysha Marie Conoles).  The shepard is mostly drunk, thus a refrence to Dionysus who was considered a god of wine. Alcinoe is not frustrated at the farm but still unhappy because she doesn't like what she sees in her family,  and Merope, the wife is pretty absurd in her exoticness.  It's a picture of a disfunctional family.  They were given a son in a basket,  Oedipus who disappeared at the age of 18 and the shepered decides to clebrate Oedipus who is now the king of Thebes to come home when shepered turns 50.

The whole story is not that clear and it's messy indeed.  The set doesn't help much.  The farmhouse is supposed to be on the top of a hill and the hill , the way it's designed is quite awkward.  We feel nervous for the actors when they try to slide down the hill. There is a rape trial as well. I guess the daughter had been raped  and the result of the trial is murky.
But the daughter likes to be at the farm beside all the other stuff surrounding her because to be the shepered's daughter is a higher credit.

Oedipus (Keith Conallen) does come back but he is blind now but still attracted to his mother
Merope.  The ending is tragic which is very much like Greek tragic myths, so one can say that there are symbols of greeks here.  The play tries very hard so does the actors but somehow we can't really concentrate on the story especially in the first act which is pretty scattered. I guess it can be tuned a bit with a bit of editing and a bit of clarity. I neverthe less really enjoyed the perforance of Melanye Finister in the role of Merope. She has great stage presence, good vocal ability and majestic movement skill and charming and exotic manner.  I would love to atch her in another play.
But I do enjoy Wilma theater's productions.  They mostly do wonders.  I have enjoyed a few shows
at this great theater in the past.

REVIEWED BY BINA SHARIF FOR artsinternational
BINA SHARIF, EDITOR/PUBLISHE: artsinternational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell: 212-260-6207
www.facbook.com

EAT, DRINK & BE LITERARY AT BAM CAFE

EAT, DRINK & BE LITERARY AT BAM CAFE
Presented in Partnership with the National Book Foundation
Presents.

MIN JIN LEE

MIN JIN LEE,  a writer of enormous power concentrates mostly on topics such as immigration,
history of oppression, assimilation and migration.  She says that she is a classic introvert who reads
and reads a lot which creates a great feel for humanity especially the humanity which is mostly oppressed.  She states that, "In the history of oppression there is blunt trust in the person incharge."
She focuses on diaspora and human rights. That creates a sense and an obligation in any sensitive
writer or scholar to have their pen on the pulse of human condition and Min Jin Lee certainly has that
sensitivity and emapathy.

"My art has to reflect the moral justice that I believe in. I am interested in creating rdical empathy through art. That's the little task that I set for myself."

 And I believe it's not a little task, it's a huge undertaking.
  In Today's materialistic world, the word empathy and moral justice seem foreign.
Most of the people don't recognize those important words and a writer who doesn't deal with human condition which contains a sea of difficulties such as poverty, abandonment, lack of education, health,
racism, otherness of the outsider who remains an immigrant for ever  after decades of migration struggling to be part of society as a normal person, that writer is not deep enough or inclusive enough
 or sensitive enough and is not worth paying attention.

Min Jin Lee is obviously not that kind of a writer.  She is compassionate, concerned, sympathetic
and aware of the difficulties of survival of the people of diaspora.  She is sensitive towards different religions.  She told us the other night what's missing in secondary education. "In our secondary
education something is lacking in USA.  I am concerned about the lack of understanding of different religions especially Islam and I think if they have this subject as mendatory in secondary school it will help trmendously."
 Just her concern for this topic tells us how blessed we are to have writers ike Ms. Lee.

She is amazingly funny as well.  A writer who makes the invisible, very visible.  A writer who has the gift of feeling aother groups struggle of survival with equal amount of pathos and humor and how one can taste their culture throgh food.  After listening to her sentenes about,"Kimchi" I am now hungry for it and must go and taste it soon "I like my people and I want to write about them."
How wonderful is that? And how deeply honest.  This kind of simple, clean and effective language
makes a writer precious and I found her precious and special.

Min Jin Lee is a lawyer as well.  Her debut novel was, Free Food for Millionaires which won many awards and her novel, Pachinko, a finalist for the National Book Award and is Top 10 Books of the year for the New York Times.  She is a Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellow for 2018-19

In her question answer section she mentioned a novel named, Dictee by another Korean writer and
it was such an intersting coincident because a marathon reading of the whole novel was done this March at Performance Space NY in one day with at least 45 readers and I happened to be one of the
readers.  Amazing.  The author of Dictee was sadly murdered at a young age at the Puck building.
Two very different styles, two very different writers but the compassion and their skill to make their words so visual, powerful, effective and thought provoking is exactly the same.  I told her about this
reading of Dictee and she expressed lot of admiration and affection for the novel.

I am thrilled that I had the chance to hear three wonderful writers at this great event, Eat, Drink & Be
Literary and I shall wait for more next year, Inshallah (God willing)

WRITTEN
BY
BINA SHARIF
Editor/Pubisher: artsinernational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell: 212-260-6207
WWW.Facebook.com

THE LAND OF PROMISE

THE LAND OF PROMISE

An evening, a celebration of the Scots-Irish, the original settlers to America.
The Migration started in 1717 and these Immigrants became the greatest pioneers,
patriots and originators of a great revolution and today they are in millions and still contributing
in every aspect of American life.

The evening celebrates their migration, their contribution, their innovation and their enormous skills in every sphere of American life and its culture with dance, music, song and story telling.

The evening is presented in association with The Ulster Scots agency and the Northern Ireland Bureau in partnership with Carnegie Hall and "Migrations Festival"

Written by  Turlough McCounnell
Directed by George C. Heslin

Both the writer and the director were able to tell this fascinationg true story withe help of a wonderful cast. The Narrators, Orlagh Cassidy and Colin Ryan were able to make it very clear how the Scot- Irish presence and influence starting from 1717 uptill now in America is woven deeply in America
and every aspect of its history.  So many settlers influencd the finance, politics and culture and one can see the results of prosperity.  Even the very first president, George Washington had scot-Irish
ancestors and the participation of many amazing cultural figures such as Margrete Mitchell, author of "Gone with the wind" , There was a woderful scene from the movie, Viven leigh and Thomas Mitchell talking about the importance of land and how one should hold on to it because the land is the only thing which matters, relevant to the settllers story who,  many of them, Scots- Irish from the South who cultivated  the land and participated in many other amazing achievements.

The scene from, "Gone with the Wind" Added an incredible charm for me because I was sitting next to my partner,  Kevin Mitchell Martin who is the grand nephew of Thomas Mitchell and that particular scene gave him immense pleasure, joy and Pride.

The whole cast which included singers. dancers, comedians, muscians were just amazing.
Niamh Hyland, singer and a song writer was very moving with a melodious voice
so was Garrett Coleman, a two time solo World Champion in Irish Dance and Caitlin Golding who started dancing at the age seven and is still dancing and is just enthralling. Who on this planet doesn't love Irish dancing? Irish dancing is just the best and I throughly enjoyed their dance.

The whole evening is lots of fun because it has so much variety, the words, the songs, the dance, the music and the most important is the story of Migration of the Scots-Irish to American soil and their amazing accomplishments and for me it is of great value because I never knew such details of the early settlers and their incredible positive influene in every field in American history.  I am for sure
much better informed after this wonderful experience.

- BINA SHARIF
artsinternational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell: 212-260-6207

Eat, Drink & Be Literary: Bam Cafe

Eat, Drink & Be Litrerary:Bam Cafe

It was a great privilege to have attended, Eat, Drink & Be Literary event which has been going on for 15 years at Bam Cafe with the partnership of National Book Foundation, the second time.
On March 20th I attended the event to experience in person one of the great American writer, John Edgar Wideman.  I was so excited by the Literary quality of the work, wonderful meal and an attentive crowd that I couldn't wait for the second part of this great literary series and on April 9 I had the joy to be present and Listen to Sloane Crosley, an essayist and a humor writer and my joy was doubled by her delightful,smart and warm wit. 

She is the author of bestselling essay collection, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, And How Did You Get This Number and the novel, The Clasp.  Her work has appeared in New York times, Vogue, The Guardian and many other magazines including New Yorker. Her most recent book of essays is Look Alive Out There.

"All writing is found in memory, no mater what kind."  Sloane Crosley tells us.
"Writing starts with a good memory.  This is often called, Observation. Humor
does come naturally."

Her words are so true.  Memory is the essential key to remeber all the tiny details one
has observed in everyday ordinary life, in the streets, in the subway, in a cafe, in a garden, watching flowers, watching the grass, hearing the singing of the birds, sitting on a bench where a person sits all alone looking despondent...and all these beautiful poignant details take your memory to another memory of the past and it goes on and on and you almost have a whole chapter of a book or an essay in your mind which you compose into a single Idea or a thought and that begins your hard work to glorious results.  Sloane Crosley has that ability which makes a great writer who is enormously enjoyable to watch and listen to.  She is not trying to be funny but she is.  She is funny because she doesn't try hard and why should she?  Its in her words, in her demeanor, in her joyful and warm presence but mostly in her keen observation of her detailed narrative.  Devil is not in her details, humor is. The writer who comes across as humorous and funny is usually very deep.  His or her words come from a raw core which is melodiously mixed with abstract touch of pain, sarcasam
and a sense of fun and Solane Crosely has that and effortlessly demonstrate that.

Even when she hasn't spoken a single word yet, her smile engulfs us and doesn't let us go till her last sentence.  Not every great writer has the ability to be a great reader.  Some are shy, some are self conscious, but not Ms. Crosley.  She is charming, confident, sure of her utterences and very enjoyable.

Her work reminded me of Nora Ephron. At the question answer session I asked her about what other writers and essayists influenced and inspired her and she said, Joan Didion.  I was a bit surprised
because Didion's novel, The Year Of Magical Thinking which I read the second time recently, is so very sad but then I thought about her essays which has the same kind of Simple, raw and personal feel like Ms Crosley and I was actually happy to have that answer because I adore Didion.

I have to confess my little regret of not attending these great literary events in the past at Bam Cafe.
The space is a dream with beautiful lights, the food is fresh, healthy and nourshing and people attending seems very much attuned to the upcoming writer to stand on that podium and share their
brilliant work with us and there is pindrop silence, no coughing, no unwrapping of the candies, just complete  concentration in the present moment of sharing and learning and listening to the melodiuos words.
Sad words, happy words, funny words, soul searching words...just words, words, words. Total bliss.
Can't wait for Min Jin Lee, the next writer on May 1.

MABOU MINES FAUST 2 . O

MABOU MINES FAUST 2 . O
AT 122CC, 150 First Ave
TILL, April 14, 2019

DIRECTED BY
SHARON ANN FOGATY

ADAPTED FROM GOETHE BY
MATTHEW MAGUIRE

Faust (Benton Greene) makes a deal with Mephistopheles (Paul Kandel).  He sells his soul for ever lasting wordly pleasures, desires, adventures and more desires. "My life is desire and satisfaction, and desire again." Faust declares his wishes to Mephistopheles who makes a proud bet with God
(Bill Raymond, on video) that he wil surely win Faust's soul.

This production in which Matthew Maguire adapts Faust into a second part where Faust meets Helen
of Troy and also have a child with her besides having many other adventures.

This production is divided into two parts.  Six live actors and almost 18 brilliant actors on video  screens and the effect is stunning visually and technically and is very cleverly done, but Mabou Mines is known for its mutimedia and very ambitious productions and Sharon Fogarty doesn't disappoint.

Video appearances includes many wonderful actors but Greg Mehrten as the Emperor is amazingly
powerful and every inch an Emperor. His presence even on a video screen some times steal the scene
from a live cast which is very good as well.  While I was watching the Emperor, I felt some heavenly energy.  I looked on my left and guess who was sitting next to me?  Greg Mehrten...
watching himself on the video with such concentration (hallmark of a great actor, the intense concentration) Here and there,  during the show I sneaked a look at him, couldn't help it...
I have always admired him a lot in the past as I have cherished, Great Karen Kandel who with her wild energy and hair and a melodious voice call herself, Care and mocks Faust and is scene stealer as well.

Another brilliant actor here is Paul Kandel, tall, lanky, dangerously agile, who plays the devil
Mephistopheles and is superb.

Maude Mitchell and Arthur French, an old couple who had been wrogned by Faust (On video)
are wonderful as well.

Video design by Jeff Sugg, Set & Lighting design by Jim Clayburgh is very cool and effective.

Sharon Ann Fogarty as a director has done a terrific job putting this highly complex show together.  Do not miss.

REVIEW
BY
BINA SHARIF
Editor/Publisher: artsinternational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell: 212-260-6207

THE TRAGEDY OF JUIUS CAESAR

                                                           



THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR
AT
THEATRE FOR A NEW AUDIENCE

Polonsky Shakespeare Center
DIRECTOR: Shana Cooper
LIGHTING DESIGN: Christopher Akerlind
CHOREGRAPHER: Erica Chong Shuch
SOUND: Paul James Prendergas

A vibrant and extremely energetic production of The Tragedy Of Julius Caesar at Theatre For a New Audience just opened. It's taking place in Rome but actually its make believe Rome because the production is staged as a contemporary and experimental version of Julius Caesar.  There are no togas.
All acttors are dressed in pants and Caesar in a suit, (dressed to be killed). In the very first scene of the play actors enter with thundering music (Actually very good music and sound effects) in masks and greyish skirts. They are  protesting against the tyranny of Caesar, (we are told that
Caesar is a populist and a tyrrant?) Many times I have not felt him to be so because maybe he dies too soon, rather killed too soon and its not because the actor playing Caesar doesn't do a good job, on the contrary, here Rocco Sisto playing the part is absolutely the best.  I have seen Rocco Sisto in many plays and he has never disappointed me.  He has a regal personality and a wonderful deep and theatrical voice. When I found out that he is playing Caesar I was saddened because I knew he isn't going to be on stage for long. Not that the rest of the production is not entertaining, actually its quite good looking visually, blood excluded. What I am trying to express here is that I actually enjoyed the play very much and I usually do not like Classics to be done in modern dress to represent the present.

Another thing I do not like or agree with is that some critics comparing recent productions of Julius Caesar with Trump era.
Trump and Caesar are Centuries apart and its a cheap comparison and wishful thinking that Trump  could be gotten rid of somehow just like Caesar. To watch a great play by Shakespeare and thinking about Trump at the same time is a pity to say the least but lets get back to Julius Caesar.

As I said earlier I love this play, actually I love Shespeare's tragic plays much more than his comedies,
Am I a morbid person? You can say that but I go for the language and the laguage here was pretty
well spoken so I forgot about the sheetrock walls cracking and plaster falling down, actually the cracks in the walls represented crumbling republic and its downfall.  The scenic design by Sibyl Wickersheimer was quite effective so was the sound by Paul James Prendergast but the best thing was the choreography by Erika Chong Shuch. Most of the time in theater as well as in the movies the battle scenes are a laugh but here it was amazing like a beautiful sculpture still moving slowly in a dim light.

So this is how the tragedy of Julius Caesar goes, (A bit late for me to tell the story but never mind)
Caesar's senators conspire one night to murder him before he is knighted as a king...rumor has it that he might bcome a king and then will have the power of a god. So Cassius makes a plan of murdering Caesar and provokes the other conspiratots including Brutus who in the beginning is reluctant but later on join the others and when Caesar appears in a relaxed and jovial manner gets brutally stabbed by all of them and the biggest surprise for Caesar is that Brutus is also involved.

Caesar's wife Calpurnia (Tiffany Rachelle Stewart) warns and beg Caesar not to go to the senate this morning because she had an awful dream about his statue being stabbed and blood coming out of of it like a fountain but alas he didn't listen to his wife, (men usually don't listen to their wives)  Brutus did the same.  His wife Portia wanted him to share with her his recent brooding mood and why was he behaving roubled but he shunned her off as well. The warning of danger was also given to Caesar by the soothsayer, "Beware the Ides of March" but was ignored and then the murder was done and even after Mark Antony's (Jordan Barour) passionate speech to turn the mob against the assasins, the Republic eventually falls apart and "Peace, freedom, liberty" is not reborn.

Jordan Barbour as Mark Antony was good but could have used more passion and fire in his speech,
All actors were believable and held our attention but what I liked the best beside listening to Shakespeare's great words was the visuals and the beautiful choreography and the lighting design.
This production of Julius Caesar is much more enjoyable than a few I have seen in the recent past.
Theater for a new audience and its productions have never disappointed me.

BINA SHARIF
Editor/Publisher: artsinternational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell: 212-260-6207
Facebook

Caesar's wife Calpurnia begs him not to attend the assembly because she had a dream that

Eat, Drink & Be Literary at BAM cafe

Eat, Drink & Be Literary at BAMcafe

This great event, Eat, Drink & Be Literary presented in partnership with the National Book Foundation which is an yearly event hosted 4 award winning writers Robert A. Caro, John Edgar
Wideman, Sloane Crosley, and Min Jin Lee at the beautiful and majestic BAMcafe.

I was extremely fortunate to attend the event on March 20 when John Edgar Wideman was going to read and be interviewed by Deborah Treisman followe by question answer session.
I love books of all kinds but am extremely moved by writers such as John Edgar Wideman and James Baldwin and many others like them. I have never met James Baldwin and it gives me sorrow but what a delight it was to not only know John Edgar Wideman's work but to finally hear him read his melodious, poetic, personal and painfully poignant words in person.

His work is autobiographical.  His focus is on Black experienc in America with the emphasis on Black American men and their sons.  His personal history is nevertheless bigger and larger than
intimacy with himself and it engulfs the history of Blacks in Americ.  The writing's depth, its grace
and its sensitivity and how the words are strung together in sentenes leave you breathless.

Mr. Wideman himself has such grace, dignity and standing with his cannon of literature that one is just mesmerized. You see, the word creates a sentence, a sentence creates a paragraph, a paragraph creates a chapter and the chapter creates another chapter and another and it becomes a book and gets published if you are lucky but luck has its smallest share in the monumental effort.  Something else is needed to have such an effect on the audiences and readers of the world and that is, craft, talent, earnestness, honesty, poetry, history and some kind of personal pain combined with history of
the world you live in and John Edgar Widem has all of it and then some more.

He is one of the most touching orator I have encountered.  He moved me to such an extent that I have been thinking of him and his great writing since Wednesday and I am so glad that I bought at least two of his books, American Histories and Fatheralong that very night and can't wait to start reading them.


When he read, Last Day, the writing dealing with the nasty, awful doings in the U.S. prison-criminal
justice culture, (at the moment he has a brother who is serving a rather long incarceration), Widemna
reflected on conditions in the present American society, essentially concluding that things both racial and socioeconomic have a long, long way to go before reaching the land of betterment.

It was a worthy evening.  People in the wonderful cafe were so absorbed with the beauty and the
clarity of his words and his speech. 
For me just to see him standing tall with his head held high reciting extremely important and truthful
words was an experience I cherished and will cherish. When one see and hear such writers one feel
so brave and so afarid and so sad and so delighted at the same time. Hope to surpass all obstacles seems possible.

John Edgar Wideman is a MacArthur Fellow and two time PEN/Faulkner award winner.
Deborah Treisman did a great job and question answer session went well but the audience including me were hungry for more.

There are two more writers, Sloane Crosley and Min Jin Lee presenting their work on April 9 and May 1st.  DO NOT MISS.

WRITTEN
BY
BINA SHARIF
Editor/publisher:artsinternational
artsinternational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell: 212-260-6207
Facebook.com

'DANCE OF DEATH AND 'MIES JULIE', STRINDBERG

'DANCE OF DEATH'AND "MIES JULIE' STRINDBERG

August Strindberg, Swedish playwright, 1849--1912 wrote plays dealing with the most disturbd
and difficult relationships between lovers about sexual anxiety, lust, misplaced passion, troubles between husbands and wives, not ordinary troubles but desperate and pathological troubles.
Two of his plays, MIES JULIE, (MISS JULIE) and DANCE OF DEATH dealing with above mentioned desires a it's difficulties are being produced by CSC, classical stage company till March 10.

'MISS JULIE' IS NOW TITLED, 'MIES JULIE' adapted by Yael Farber and directed by Shariffa Ali
is set in South Africa after apartheid.  Miss Julie is a very haunting, dark play which deals with class
system, master and servant relationships and it's enormous tensions.  It's like upstairs, downstairs situation...and when sexual passion and desire between the two classes intermingle for whatever reason, attraction, loneliness, control, pathology, the result is going to be losts of smoke, fire and then eventual destruction. It's a sad and scary play because it reveals again and again the status of the occupants of those house hold. It's like society is telling you to, "Know your place and don't cross the boundries"  In Miss Julie the characters do things which  have devastating results.

In original Miss Julie, there are three characters, Julie, the rich man's spoiled and controlling daughter, Jean, her father's servant and Christina, a cook and Jean's fiance. The action takes place in Jean and Christina's kitchen downstairs.

In this new adaptation by Yael Farber, the play takes place in Karoo, South Africa and Jean is now John, a black man whose'ancestors were slaves.  The charcter of Christine has changed from John's fiance to his elderly mother. With these changes, the concept of the play utterly changes.
From sexual desires and sexual frustration of the upper class spoiled young Mies Julie has changed
towards race and the tragic history of it's slavery. With this drastic change the play did not work for me though the actors tried their best but it was a different concept and I kept thinking of the original
play all along. The ghost of John's ancient slaves walking around a few times didn't help either.

'DANCE OF DEATH'
Translated by wonderful Irish playwright Conor MacPherson and directed by Victoria Clark is
about a married couple, Alice (Cassie Beck) and Edgar (Richatd Topol) an army officer who is stationed on an island. They live in a house which was an army prison in the past.  It's a toxic love-hate relationship, more hate than love in which the husband and wife throw insults at each other like a fast and furious tennis match. Then there is another character, Kurt (Christopher Innvar) who is Alice's cousin and perhaps a lover in  her past who surprises the couple by showing up after many years.

The good thing about dance of death is that it has become very jovial and funny and light and that is also the bad thing about the play.  Though we as the audience members enjoy the show and laugh frequently but ones who know Strindberg's work well miss that ferociuos tension in the relationship.  They have been married for 25 years and have been hurting each other for such a long time and sometime one wonders about the waste of lives lacking basic happiness which has no joy in it.  But in this translation I felt as if I was watching a charming comedy and the couple was just kidding and teasing each other out of love and for some fun.  It's fun but the darkness and fire of their relationship is missing. Strindberg was a dark, disturbed writer who had incredibly difficult relationships in his marriages and he revealed lots of personal stuff in his work.  I recently read a trilogy of his plays called, "Road to Jeruslam" in which it was revealed that it was quite autobiographical and it dealt with his horrendous struggles for a happy marriage and relationship with his children beside many other serious problems he encountered throghout his life.  Strindberg was not a jovial writer.
But it was still fun to watch dance of death for a change.
Cassie Beck was excellent.

Reviewed by Bina Sharif
artsinternational.blogspot.com
binashariff@gmail.com
Cell: 212-260-6207
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UNDER THE RADAR FESTIVAL AT THE PUBLIC THEATER

UNDER THE RADAR FESTIVA AT THE PUBLIC THEATER
CHAMBRE
NOIRE

Reviewed by
Bina Sharif for artsinternational

Directed by:Yngvild Aspeli and Paola Rizza
Actress Puppeteer;Yngvild Aspelie
Percussionist; Ane Marthe Sorlien Holen
Lighting Designer; Xavier Lescat

Chambre Noire is a disurbing story about the life of Valerie Solanas, who was a women's rights
activist and a radical writer who wrote SCUM Menifesto. She had a master's degree in psychology
and issues with men, most men who ran rules and regulations.  She often uttered with great boldness  words such as, "Every man deep down knows he is a piece of shit" She was angry, fearless, reckless
woman who also called herself a, "WHORE" Chambre Noire is a haunting hallucination at the time
when she is dying all alone by herself in a single vacancy hotel room.  She was in and out of mental institutions. She encountered Andy Warhol and was just a minor character in his art space famously known as, 'FACTORY"

She wrote a play and gave it to Andy Warhol to produce and felt extremely ignored when he didn't even returned her calls and one day she took guns to the factory and shot him.  In the play this question is raised many times, "Why did you shoot Andy Warhol?"  She didn't have any precise answer except her hatred towards him because he was one of those men she thought were real scum. But after this incident her mental illness progressed.

Chambre Noire tells the story of valerie Solanas through music, life size puppets, precise and beutifully designed and focused lights and video, thus creating a hallucination which reflects the depth of her complicated and fragmented mind when she is struggling to get out of her collapsing last gasps. Puppeteer/actress Yngvild Aspeli who is also the artistic director of Plexus Polaire orchestrates
life-sized puppets so brilliantly that it's difficult to believe if she is handling a real person or a lifeless puppet with wooden legs.  The lights and her precise handling of Valerie Solanas, (as a puppet) creates beautiful and at times scary images which creates spasms of vertigo like feelings of falling down from a cliff of a wasted life.  The play is beutifully designed.  Images are dark and light with the effect of tunnels full of darkness with some rays of bright light which keeps fading like Valerie Solanas life.  The play has stunning music which is a percussion of signals and alarms and of a dirge of death approaching. This play doesn't have many words, doesn't tell us her whole story but does communicate sadness and sorrow.  The play is fragmented like Solanas mind and it's a beautiful tragedy.

Bina Sharif: Editor/publisher, artsinternational.blogspot.com
Email: binashariff@gmail.com
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Cell: 212-260-6207

UNDER THE RADAR FESTIVAL AT THE PUBLIC THEATER

UNDER THE RADAR FESTIVAL AT THE PUBLIC THEATER
EVOLUTION OF A SONERO

Written and performed by
Flaco Navaja
Music:  Five muscians-aka The Razor Blades

Flaco Navaja is a poet, singer and an actor.  He is an original member of UNIVERSES and that famous Def poetry Jam cast.  He is from the Bronx and one can see how deeply proud he is of his roots. There is a saying about being on stage." If you have charm, if you have a personality, if you have humor, that's where you belong-on the stage."  And Falco Navaja has all of that and much more.
He has what's most essential, "THE TALENT" He can sing, dance, crack jokes, recite poetry with all it's essence intact and can tell a great story following all the intricate details.  Story telling is the greatest skill, all theater, all drama is infact story telling. And there is no story if one doesn't follow the details and punch lines and the pauses. Falco Navaja knows that.  Maybe he is the ancestor of Greeks and Sankskrit poets and story tellers who were tragic and comic at the same moment.
Falco knows the impact of his spoken words, his poetry, his beat and his dance.  And god bestowed
upon him the most pleasant and charming face with a smile to kill.

He tells us the sad story of his arrest on his mother's birthday and the beating by his father afterwards and we crack up.  He tells us the story of his wife giving birth on the way to Lenox hill hospital all the way from the Bronx in an Uber driven car with the road jam packed with trafic and baby being born and we sit on the edge of our seats with this anxiety and prayer, "Oh! god I hope everything goes right for him and the wife and the baby"  And there is such relief and joy at the end.

Music is just brilliant.  Falco makes fun of himself, his circumstances and of some musical numbers with devastating humor.  He is the most likeable performer I have seen on the stage in a while.
His body is made for the dance, his face is made for that smile and his self deprecating humor is to die.
I throughly enjoyed this actor and his craft and the muscians were equally talented. Hope to catch them all again soon.