Thursday, February 23, 2012

More Links for Angels in America

And what a lot of links there are!

Let's start with the HBO Angels in America itself.




The individual scenes we looked at are below.  

Here we see Roy Cohn with his nemesis Ethel Rosenberg:



We'll jump back to see Roy Cohn intimidating his doctor:


And then there are the scenes with the Angel:


The scene above is from Eastern Michigan University's production of Angels in America.  

What follows are the trailers and scenes from theatrical versions of Angels.

First is Signature Theatre's recent revival:

Next is the Theatre Downtown's.  This company is from Birmingham, AL.

Here is Indiana University's production:

These are various scenes from Signature Theatre's production:

Finally, these are the videos of interviews with playwright Tony Kushner, actor Zachary Quinto, director George C. Wolfe, and more!








Enjoy!

Below is a picture of the "real' Antarctica!

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Saturday, February 11, 2012

Local Theater -- Red

My husband and I have also been attending performances of contemporary drama.  Last weekend we saw Red at Arena Stage, another impressive venue.  This venue, however, is quite 21st century.

Red's subject matter is also quite modern and fits into our course nicely.  The play is about modern artist Mark Rothko.

You may prefer to see his distinctive paintings in color.

The play is set in the late 1950s when Rothko was completing a commission to paint murals for The Four Seasons, a very expensive restaurant in NYC.  Rothko's style of painting was also being challenged by the work of artists such as Andy Warhol.  In the play itself, Rothko and his assistant, Ken, a young artist, battle over art and its meaning.  I wonder how this play would work as drama read in a class like EN 230.  However, visual and aural elements that may be difficult to convey on the page are so important to this play in particular.  (It is set in Rothko's studio, a capacious loft with much equipment and many paintings in progress.)  Also, as my brother-in-law pointed out to me, this play would be difficult to stage in many settings and requires a venue and company like Arena Stage or its equivalent.  For more information, see this article from The NY Times:


The scene below is from Arena Stage.


Even the paint that Rothko and Ken throw around the stage requires technical know-how.  After all, oil paint is very permanent.  Yet, in one scene, Ken cleans it up very quickly.

For reviews of Red at Arena Stage, see the following links:



Links to reviews of other productions are below:





For information about Rothko, see the links below:




And what did happen to the murals that Rothko was supposed to paint for the Four Seasons:



To finish, here are links to videos and articles about what it is like to perform in Red.




The scene below is from Boston's Speakeasy Theater:

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Local Theater -- The Gaming Table


Although Susanna Centlivre wrote The Basset Table...I mean...The Gaming Table long before our era begins in EN 230, I'd like to post a quick review of the performance my husband and I saw today at the Folger Theater in DC.

One of the advantages of living near DC is the ability to see performances of plays that are no longer performed as often.  The Folger Theater is a particularly suitable venue.  The two-story stage with its sweeping, wooden staircase represented an eighteenth-century London mansion in a way that a more typical stage might not.

This performance reminded me that Restoration comedy is fun to read--and watch.  The performance was fun and funny without being condescending or condescended to.  Neither did it creak.  The actors were skillful, and parts of the play were discreetly updated here and there.  Since we associate basset with dogs rather than with cards, the play's title became The Gaming Table.  After all, the play is about women who gamble on cards, love, and men.  The prologue and epilogue included references to Congress and women's roles today.

Like many Restoration comedies, The Gaming Table brings together several couples in a merry round of romance.  Centlivre gives us four to be exact.  First is Lady Reveller, a spunky widow, and her beau Worthy, who wants her to give up gambling.  Next is her cousin Lady Lucy, a serious young lady who prefers the playhouse to the gaming table, and Sir James Courtly, a not-so-serious man.  Another cousin, Valeria, would seem to prefer science to love...except that she is in love with the charming Ensign Lovely.  And then there are Mr. and Mrs. Sago, Pud and Kiki...except that she appears to love gaming and Sir James more than she loves her husband.  Other characters throw in complications.  Valeria's father intends for her to marry Captain Hearty who would rather not marry her.  And then there are Buckle and Alpiew, the servants of Worthy and Lady Reveller respectively.

But all's well in the end.

Here are links to a few reviews of The Gaming Table:





For more information about the play itself, see The Folger Theater's website:


For more information about Susanna Centlivre who wrote The Basset Table in 1705, see these links:



See these links for a review of an earlier revival of The Basset Table:


UMBC has a podcast of a performance:


Chicago's Alcyone Festival in 2008 included a performance of another of Centlivre's plays:

The Busy Body was staged in NYC in 2010:

The blog entry above has many pictures!

The Wonder was also staged in NYC.  This appears to be a more modern version.



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Langston Hughes, The Playwright

 You may know Langston Hughes (1902-1967) as a poet, the author of "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "I, Too, Sing of America," and "Theme for English B."  These poems are quite famous.  (Below is a link to Hughes reading "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," a poem that he wrote when he was seventeen!)


You may also know Hughes from your freshman composition class.  Many teachers assign Hughes' "Salvation," a piece from his autobiography, The Big Sea.


However, Hughes was also a playwright, and "Soul Gone Home" (1937) was one of his many efforts in this genre.  Here is a link to an article about a recent performance of this play:


I'm surprised that there haven't been other revivals, but here is a review of an opera based on Hughes' play.


Ah, here is a review of a performance of the play at Purdue's Black Cultural Center:


A picture of this 2002 performance is below:


Hughes wrote a number of other plays and librettos for operas, and during the later part of his career, he became increasingly successful.  Staging his plays could be frustrating, and he often had to fight for them.  In 1930, he collaborated with Zora Neale Hurston on a play, Mule Bone, but their partnership fell apart.  Ultimately, she claimed that the finished play was hers and hers alone.  As a result, the theater company that had been planning on performing the play decided not to do so, and the play would not be staged until 1991, long after its authors' deaths.


 A review of this play is below:


Written in 1930 and performed on Broadway in 1935, Mulatto was Hughes' first play.  


Hughes' Black Nativity (first performed 1961) is probably his most famous play.  You may even be able to see it next Christmas in DC!




This online exhibit at the University of Kansas gives an overview of Hughes' career as playwright and songwriter:


For more of an overview of Hughes' career, see these links:


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