Archives for April 6, 2018

In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review a revival of Basil Twist’s Symphonie Fantastique. Here’s an excerpt.

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“Symphonie Fantastique,” Basil Twist’s abstract, wordless 1998 underwater puppet show set to the music of Hector Berlioz, is being revived downtown. Here’s part of what I wrote about it in 2004: “What you see…is one wall of a shallow glass tank into which five wet-suited puppeteers dip and slosh 180 peculiar-looking objects, none of which even remotely resembles Charlie McCarthy. Inspired by the paintings of Wassily Kandinsky and Berlioz’s own program for the ‘Fantastic Symphony,’ Mr. Twist uses this equipment to conjure up a bewitching string of complex scenes that unfold with the nagging compulsion of a love story (which is what Berlioz’s symphony is, more or less)….”

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To read my review of Symphonie Fantastique, go here

The trailer for Symphonie Fantastique:

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review an off-Broadway revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. Here’s an excerpt.

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Most American theatergoers know “Pygmalion,” George Bernard Shaw’s most popular play, through “My Fair Lady,” the even more popular 1956 musical version. The “Hamilton” of its day, “My Fair Lady” was filmed in 1964, and between the screen version and the stage version, which Lincoln Center Theater is opening on Broadway later this month, it’s become surprisingly hard to see “Pygmalion” in its original form….

Now Bedlam, which specializes in radically reconfigured small-scale productions of the classics, is performing “Pygmalion” in an 80-seat off-Broadway theater in a production staged by and starring the prodigally gifted Eric Tucker, the company’s artistic director. As always with Bedlam, this slimmed-down revival, in which six actors cover 10 speaking parts, is joltingly original in its approach to Shaw’s 1913 play. Purists may not approve of the results—but I guarantee they’ll make you think.

If you’ve never seen “Pygmalion,” you may be surprised to learn that it’s a comedy, but not, unlike “My Fair Lady,” a romantic one. Shaw went to considerable trouble to make clear that Henry Higgins (Mr. Tucker), the haughty, anti-social professor of phonetics, and Eliza Doolittle (Vaishnavi Sharma), the low-born Cockney flower girl whom he endeavors on a bet to teach how to speak and act like a Vicwardian lady, entertained no romantic feelings for one another….

What resulted was an effervescent satire with a hacksaw-hard political edge. Mr. Tucker has deliberately sharpened that edge by turning his Eliza into an Indian immigrant from Delhi whose “depressing and disgusting” accent (as Higgins describes it) is an all-but-impenetrable mixture of Cockney and Hindi….

I wasn’t always convinced by Mr. Tucker’s decision to depart so drastically from Shaw’s explicit intentions. So what? When an artist of such originality opts to veer off the main road and go his own way, the smart thing to do is follow his lead and ask questions later….

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To read the complete review, go here.

Universal Mind of Bill Evans: The Creative Process and Self-Teaching, a 1966 documentary directed by Louis Cavrell:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

Preposterous ass, that never read so far
To know the cause why music was ordain’d!
Was it not to refresh the mind of man,
After his studies or his usual pain?

William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew