52. Screening of “Ararat” and Q&A with director Atom Egoyan, film school, Oct. 25: What a bitter disappointment: After such gems as “The Sweet Hereafter,” which I think is one of the most moving films I’ve ever seen, Egoyan returns with an amateurish, heavy-handed, thudding brick of a film that manages at the same time to be one-sided (against the Turks, naturally) when discussing the Armenian genocide but also curiously emotionally unengaged, as if we’re watching it through a sheet of waxed paper. Egoyan takes the tack that people have heard of the genocide and then attempts contemporary reaction to that fact filtered through the Armenian community. In other words, he isn’t as interested in the genocide itself as the way it affects us today -- a noble goal, and one that’s much more useful than the Dredge Up Old Hurts school of filmmaking. But though the concept is laudable, Egoyan can’t navigate the overly complex structure he creates: a young Armenian man (played by David Alpay) who can’t relate to the genocide until he starts working on a film about the topic (ah, the bedraggled film-within-a-film concept) and gets in touch with his roots. This sets up a strained framework involving a retiring customs inspector (Christopher Plummer) who quizzes the young man about the holocaust even as he suspects him of smuggling heroin. I admit I bring to this film a whole set of baggage of my own, having absorbed 10 years of Fresno-area drumbeating from the Armenian community to keep the old wounds with the Turks open and festering. But Egoyan goes beyond making a one-sided film -- he makes a one-sided boring film. For shame.
53. Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Oct. 27: A nice Sunday afternoon at the gardens, including all the Halloween-themed ghosts and goblins running around. I want to go back when the cherry trees are in bloom.
54. “Art in the Arch,” Grand Army Plaza Arch Gallery, Oct. 27: Four contemporary artists (Barbara Andrus, Deenps Bazile, Otto Neals and Henri Silberman) celebrated trees through sculpture and photographs. Plus I got to climb to the top of the arch for nice views of the Brooklyn library, Prospect Park and the Manhattan skyline.
55. Brooklyn Museum of Art, Oct. 27: Two interesting exhibitions: “Judy Chicago: The Dinner Party,” in which the artist sets 39 place-settings at a triangle-shaped table. Each of the place settings salutes a prominent woman of great historical significance, from Primordial Goddess to Georgia O’Keefe. It’s an incredible undertaking, using the labor of more than 400 people, and is beautifully done. There’s a reverence to detail that makes it easy to imagine all these women really together in one room, and I had fun imagining what kind of powerhouse scene that would be. The other exhibition: “Exposed: The Victorian Nude,” organized by the Tate Britain. An obvious crowd pleaser of a show that presents Victorians as not-as-prudish as their reputation suggests -- though these nudes are stylized, with only bit of pubic hair rearing up to suggest a more realistic portrayal of the human body. (In that sense, the whole thing is rather like a Playboy airbrushed centerfold.) Some fine paintings by John Singer Sargent, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Edward Burne-Jones, among others. But I admit that what I’ll most likely carry from the show is the shocking (to me) revelation that J.M.W. Turner had quite the interest in explicit sketches (all kept private, of course), most of which were destroyed after his death by John Ruskin, the executor of his estate, to protect his reputation.
56. Studio tour with William Kentridge, Oct. 30: We spent an hour with this Johannesburg artist as part of his duties as Columbia’s artist-in-residence. Kentridge was affable, slightly nervous, but very gracious, as he haltingly explained his art -- which is hard to pin down but involves printmaking, including etchings and huge sketches. Kentridge is interested in progression and time, and he uses a video camera to capture images and then freeze them in sequence, often sketching or interpreting slight progressions of movement. One of the things he’s interested in at the moment is using video to record a movement and then play it backwards -- he’s fascinated by the perfection of watching, say, a newspaper falling to the floor in reverse motion. (You always “catch” it every time.)
57. “Amour,” Music Box Theatre, Oct. 30: This slight musical has the distinction of playing the fewest Broadway performances since Kelsey Grammer’s “Macbeth” a few years back. I decided at the last minute to catch it before it closed. From the start, it’s a trivial diversion -- and a miscalculation, too “French” to successfully make the transition to English lyrics. Dusoleil (Malcolm Gets of “Caroline in the City”) is a meek, lonely man who discovers one day he has the ability to walk through walls. Suddenly his unrequited love for Isabelle (Melissa Errico) seems a little more plausible -- maybe if she learns of his new talent, he could have a chance with her (despite her boorish husband). The scenic design by Scott Pask is entrancing: a Parisian street that slides and glides before our eyes, and many of the walking-through-walls moments are entrancing. Yet the love story is faint and uninvolving, the songs forgettable and the Parisian stereotypes tired. Considering the pedigree (music by Michel Legrand, whose “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" is a classic) and direction by James Lapine, this has to be chalked up as a major disappointment.
58. Pauline Kael panel discussion, journalism school, Oct. 30: The legacy of the late, great movie critic for the New Yorker was the topic of this NAJP-sponsored event. In preparation I read Kael’s introduction to the script of “Citizen Kane,” in which she subjected Orson Welles to the same unblinking stare that marked her numerous movie critiques. (I also read Peter Bogdonavich’s dissection of what he calls Kael’s sloppy reportage in that famous piece.) What struck me from the panel was the consensus that Kael was emotional but not sentimental -- an important distinction. Things to read: “On the Future of Movies” (1974) and her 1968 Harper’s piece defending pop culture.
59. Halloween parade, Oct. 31: A nice, uneventful gathering most memorable for the crush of humanity at the corner of 6th Avenue and 14th Street.
60. Pedro Perez-Sarduy lecture, Columbia’s Institute for African-American Studies, Nov. 1: Perez-Sarduy is a poet, writer, journalist and broadcaster living in London, and he offered a sort of travelogue slide show about the changing nature of Cuba. I’d never been aware of the racial divisions in Cuban society -- between the blacks, the mulattos and the Cuban “whites.” Perez-Sarduy emphasized that the U.S. embargo exacerbates the low economic standing of Afro-Cubans, because most Cuban expatriates are white and send money back to their families. (Even in an egalitarian society, the rich get richer.) Afro-Cubans are by far the largest racial group (out of a population of 11 million), and according to Perez-Sarduy, when Castro dies, simmering racial tensions might flare anew.
61. “Antigone,” City Center, Nov. 1: Seeing this production of Sophocles’ classic play in Greek was a privilege -- the Greek almost turned the production into a musical, with the lyrical, soothing, hypnotic, insistent language forming a sort of insistent drumbeat toward tragedy. Niketi Kontouri’s National Theater of Greece production struck a balance between contemporary and classic. Each entrance of a major character -- Antigone, Creon, Haemon, Teiresias the blind prophet -- was marked by a strong, white light that formed a vertical bond between actor and audience. Lydia Koniordou offered a thundering portrayal of Antigone, her speeches soaring in intensity, and Kostas Triantaphyllopoulos likewise imbued his Creon with an almost muttering, nabobish sense of stubborness. A moving, charged performance.
62. Audra McDonald in concert, Carnegie Hall, Nov. 2: At the end of Audra’s performance, just after she’d sung Harold Arlen’s “Ain’t It de Truth,” it struck me that she’s not only a voice but a presence -- that even from my nose-bleed seat in the balcony, she’d managed to fill the vast hall with her personality. I was beaming with pride as the crowd erupted in applause. (OK, so the goofy Fresno connection goes a long way.) McDonald mostly sang songs from her new album, including Michael John Lachiusa’s wonderful “I See What I Wanna See,” Jay Leonhart’s “Beat My Dog” and Irving Berlin’s “Suppertime.” These are “Happy Songs” -- the name of the album -- that reflect her joy at becoming a mother, she told the audience. (Though she did say that her daughter, now a toddler, hates the sound of her voice -- “Now Ben Brantley might hate my voice, but my own daughter?”) And the evening was a joyful event. Way to go, Audra.
63. “The Sweepers,” Urban Stages, Nov. 3: Mary (Antoinette LaVecchia), Bella (Dana Smith) and Dotty (Valorie Hubbard) have known each other since grade school, and as they grew up and raised families, they stuck fiercely to their Italian-American roots, even winding up living right next door to each other in their insulated North Boston neighborhood. But World War II has torn their comfortable little world apart. John C. Picardi’s drama is set in the last days of the war, as news of the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is broadcast to a mostly uncomprehending world. The war might be over, but the effect on these three women will never be forgotten: Dotty’s son has lost his leg and her husband his mind; Mary’s sons are missing; and Bella has a terrible secret of her own as we finally learn that she prostituted herself so that her beloved only son, Sonny (Matt Walton), would be exempted from military service. Bella slowly unravels as she realizes that her son’s new bride, Karen (Domenica Cameron-Scorsese), is “stealing” him away with her upper-class ways, and the new mother-in-law makes her stand on the question of the matrimonial bed sheets -- will the bride go by the old Italian custom and hang the bloodied sheets for the world to see? “Sweepers” is a nice slice of cultural history, and I thought the first act extremely compelling. What I thought was a little weak was the wobbly way that the relationships between the three women unfold; the animosity between them is handled awkwardly, as if we’re watching strangers spar instead of lifelong acquaintances. (In one moment, Mary rakes Sonny over the coals for being “4-F” in a straightforward way that just didn’t seem natural -- these women are too close to be that blunt. Snide, hurtful, even hateful, perhaps, but never so abrupt. Their relationships are far more complicated than that.) And the revelations that build in the end, culminating in Bella admitting that she sold her body to protect her son, come on a little too neatly, prompting the actors to stray dangerously close to shrill. But it never hurts to be reminded that the price of war is paid not just on the battlefield, but among the people who are waiting back home.
64. Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Nov. 5, 2002: The museum has devoted itself to “New Hotels for Global Nomads,” a show emphasizing exceptional hotel design. Not much of real interest, though I did enjoy crawling into a Japanese capsule hotel room. Two exhibits caught my eye: “Stacked Hotel Room #9,” a performance art piece by Adam Dade and Sonia Hanney, who check into hotel rooms, pile all the furniture into a cube, take a photo and put the room back together again; and “Tourbus Hotel,” a plan by the architecture firm Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis, which envisions six hotels halfway between Venice and Munich catering exclusively to the bus-tour culture. This idea of bus tourism is a fascinating one -- the cocoon-type atmosphere that envelops travelers, forcing them into tight bonds even as they’re insulated from the culture they’re visiting, is one that leaves people with a peculiar impression of a country.
65. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nov. 6, 2002: On a quick visit, I dashed in to roam the American Wing, paying particular attention to Homer’s works and the room in which Alfred Bierstadt’s “The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak” hangs across from Frederic Edwin Church’s “The Heart of the Andes,” much as they did during their wildly successful public exhibitions.
66. “The Goat; Or Who Is Sylvia?” Golden Theatre, Nov. 5: Edward Albee’s rambunctious drama is as much a conscious effort to see how far the playwright can go in provoking the audience as it is a cohesive piece of theater. Who is Sylvia? She’s a goat, and Martin (Bill Irwin) is in love with her (and not just in the “I love my pet” department). You can imagine that his wife, Stevie (Sally Field), is not amused. “The Goat” borders on the absurdist, but it still retains its connection with reality, if only because you realize, somewhat disconcertingly, that there are plenty of people in the world who fornicate with farm animals, and even if we don’t like to acknowledge it as “normal” behavior, it’s probably more prevalent than we’d like. Actually, I didn’t have any problems with the goat-sex talked about at such length in the play; what bothered me was Albee’s attempt to up the queasability ante even more by having Martin’s gay son, Billy (Jeffrey Carlson) plant a mouth-to-mouth kiss on his father even as they argue. (Mortified, the son explains that he’s so used to being intimate when in the arms of another man that it was a reflex reaction, which strikes me as a vaguely homophobic conceit -- would a straight man try to make out with his mother in a similar situation?) I think I know what Albee was trying to do -- in Martin’s words, “we can get off on anything,” and by moving from goat to the dad-son smooch, the innate silliness of human sexuality is revealed. But I think the moment was seriously misdirected, leaving the audience saying “huh?” instead of “ick.” Field, by the way, was tremendous in the role, letting loose a frosty stream of finely pitched invective when she discovers her husband’s barnyard predilections. Neigh it isn’t so!
67. “The Exonerated,” 45 Bleecker Theater, Nov. 6: Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen traveled across the United States over the summer of 2000 interviewing 60 people who had been sentenced to death row and were later found innocent of their capital crimes. “The Exonerated” is the story of six of them: such men as Kerry Max Cook (portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss), who spent 22 years on death row before being released due to DNA evidence. That such stories are harrowing is a given. It’s enough to make even the serious pro-death-penalty advocate cause to doubt. And in the hands of a gifted cast (including Jay O. Sanders and Marlo Thomas), the evening becomes a sad, strained experience. But I couldn’t help but feel that this reading -- the actors sat on stools facing the audience -- never reached its dramatic potential. The characters never really became real for me -- it was always Richard Dreyfuss sitting up there, say, instead of Kerry Max Cook. I think that’s mostly due to the diffuse nature of the script, which never really took on a dramatic arc of its own other than the inevitability of exoneration. In other words, it seemed more like an impassioned gimmick than a moment of theater.
68. The Mountain Goats, Knitting Factory, Nov. 6: After “The Exonerated” we headed for a performance by this “band,” which turns out to be just one goat: John Darnielle. Nice music, nice lyrics.
69. “Comedy of Errors,” Clurman Theatre, Nov. 7: A goofy adaptation of Shakespeare’s very silly play involving two sets of twins, bawdy humor and a dorky plot. This Aquila Theater company production, directed by Richard Richmond, is a broadly acted, rat-a-tat, nudge-wink interpretation, complete with grunting sound effects to demarcate lines of dialogue. (It’s like a cross between a classics class and a Richard Simmons workout.) Some of it is quite clever -- and even more of it is too clever for its own good. I found myself appreciating the audacity of the director and the physical-comedy talent of the actors without laughing much at all. I think part of the reason was that I ended up in that scourge of actors everywhere: a dud of an audience that remained curiously passive even as outrageous slapstick paraded before them. (Was it because there were only 40 or so in the crowd? Why wasn’t there the infectious enthusiasm you’d expect?) The result: The actors put Shakespeare’s text through vigorous paces but were never really able to crack the audience up.
70. Group discussion with Henry Chalfant, journalism school, Nov. 8: Chalfant spent two years filming graffiti artists from the Bronx to Brooklyn as they decorated subway trains throughout the city. Was it art? Not to transit authorities -- and most of the folks who rode the subway, who saw it as vandalism. But to the kids, it most definitely WAS art -- a highly evolved form of personal expression that allowed them to put a mark on the city in a highly visible way. (In that sense, the proliferation of graffiti probably says something about the anonymity of living in a huge metropolis and the human urge to stand up and be counted.) Chalfant’s film, “Style Wars,” came out in the early ‘80s, and it obviously has a dated feel today -- and not just because today’s subway cars are almost impervious to paint. The anachronistic feel comes from the way that street art itself has evolved. It started as daring and underground, and as it became mainstream -- and even commercial -- it lost much of its urban thrill. Is graffiti art? Perhaps some of it is. But I think the most important thing to remember is that there was no opportunity to pass aesthetic judgment on the various samples of graffiti. It was foisted upon the public, and if it was bad, that was tough. That some was good didn’t make up for the fact that so much of it was ugly and little more than vandalism.
71. Architecture walking tour of Civic Center and environs, Nov. 9: This was my second field trip with my American Art and Culture class. We started at City Hall Park, which originally was the town commons, and talked about Saint Paul’s Chapel, the Brooklyn Bridge (an amazing engineering feat), the Tweed Courthouse, City Hall and the Woolworth Building.
72. “Peer Gynt,” The Theatre of the Riverside Church, Nov. 9: This Columbia student production was directed by Andrei Serban -- and what an exuberant, audacious, moving experience it was. Ibsen famously wrote his play as a “reader” -- something so complex and word-based that it could never be produced. But under Serban’s tight but giddy hand, it really did manage to come alive on stage. He cast the title character not with one man but all nine in the cast, and as we rotate through our complement of Peers -- from thin to fat, white to black -- the idea of Ibsen’s Everyman becomes even more concrete. Of course, “concrete” isn’t a word you attach to this sprawling play: Which of Peer’s notable lies are real? How many are dreams? Are the trolls who tempt him to rule their underground kingdom figments of his dark subconscious, or something he actually encountered in the forest? Is his trip to Egypt all in his mind? How about the shipwreck in which he actually kills another man in order to save his own life? In the end, who knows? Peer wants to become “Emperor of the World,” or more accurately, the “Emperor of Humanity” -- and just as we all “rule” our own private universes (and indeed can never truly escape them, locked as we are in our own heads), we identify with the way his ego struts through life with all-important purpose. There were moments in this production (which, it being a student MFA venue, didn’t have a big budget for sets or costumes) that were truly magical: the moment when those famous onions roll on stage for Peer to contemplate; the striking way that Peer’s mother is depicted “trapped” on her roof (the actress laid down on a bed of sticks and stuck her feet up in the air, creating the illusion of height); the ship’s storm created using a taut rope from one side of the stage to the other. Even though the acting was a bit uneven, you could sense the power on stage. And when Peer contemplates the onion -- peeling layers and layers of himself until he finally finds not a core but just another layer -- it’s a profoundly human moment. Maybe that’s what we all are: layers without a core.
73. “Book of Days,” Signature Theatre, Nov. 10: With a bare, bleachered stage and a withering view toward the intricacies and stifling atmosphere of tiny towns, Lanford Wilson offers stinging social commentary in the guise of a low-key murder story. Ruth (Miriam Shor of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” fame) is an amateur thespian living in Dublin, Mo., the county seat of Chosen County (and yes, the religious cliches are laid on a little thick), who auditions for “Joan of Arc” thinking it’s a musical. Her all-around-good-guy husband, Len (Matthew Rauch), manages the cheese factory in town. Together they’re the solid, low-key citizenry so essential to small towns: good hearts, workable ambition, solidarity with themselves and their neighbors. But Wilson is intent on excavating the rigid social stratification that lies under a small town’s veneer of civility. The richest man in town, Walt Bates (Jim Haynie), owns the cheese factory, but his bland-politician (and evil) son, James (Alan Campbell), has little interest in quality. He convinces a stooge to kill his father, and while the town is shocked, it’s assumed the death is a hunting accident. What I liked about the play is the way it interwove the small-town relationships with finesse. There’s a lot of history in a small town -- a slight from years ago can still throb dimly under a person’s skin -- and the suffocating atmosphere comes across. But Wilson chooses to peg his story on religion, namely that of the austere and conservative kind, and his minister, the Rev. Bobby Groves (John Lepard) is little more than a Cheshire-cat stick man of the cloth. Sure, a minister can be ruthless, but if he’s succeeded this far in life, it’s more through slick hypocrisy than bad-guy bluster. Unfortunately, some of the characters acted more like the way a big-city playwright would expect a small-town character to act than anything resembling a real person. The biggest inconsistency: the character of LouAnn Bates (Hope Chernov), whose nasty husband commits the murder; she inexplicably shifts from haughty wife to groveling penitent, and the moment in which she speaks in tongues during a worship service rings blatantly false. Still, “Book of Days” is still rich to digest even as it gets a little too ripe for its own good.
74. “Battleship Potemkin,” Butler Library, Nov. 11: Part of my ongoing Eisenstein study. A powerful, blunt film that succeeds despite its collective hero (how revolutionary is that?). The Odessa Steps sequence is riveting. (And interesting, too, that it never really happened.)
75. “Shamanism and Globalization: Tribal Magic Meets the Postmodern Technosphere,” journalism school, Nov. 11: An ill-conceived evening featuring NAJP alum Daniel Pinchbeck reading from his new book “Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism.” Aside from my dubiousness at the subject matter --at heart, I wonder, why is it necessary to ingest brain-altering substances to prove or reach the spiritual world? why isn’t the answer to such questions found within ourselves? -- I found the pairing of shamanism and globalism to be problematic. The crowd, consisting of people eager to find out where they could get their hands on the drugs, weren’t exactly poster children for the evolution of human spirituality. (Also speaking at the forum were Columbia professor Michael Taussig and novelist and poet Michael Brownstein, whose book “World on Fire” sounds the most interesting of the bunch.)
76. Lunchtime disussion with playwright Theresa Rebeck, journalism school, Nov. 12: This enounter might best described this encounter as a “therapy session” for the playwrights involved, who were far more interested in beating up the New York Times than discussing the topic at hand: namely, why it is that theater is so narrow in appeal (thus making the Times so all-powerful in the first place). A lot of jawing about the role of critics (should they be boosters or fierce outsiders, yada yada yada) and moaning about how the Times can singlehandedly close a show. All fine and good, but I say let’s stop worrying so much about the Times and start worrying about why theater is so non-essential to most people’s lives.
77. “Time to Hope,” St. John’s Cathedral, Nov. 13: A whirlwind tour through the cathedral with visiting Danny and Stacy. Not much time to inspect this depiction of the life of Christ, from the obligatory Madonnas/children to his travails upon the cross. The 101 works come from the diocse of Castilla y Leon in Spain and include wonderful illustrated manuscripts.
78. “Urinetown,” Henry Miller Theatre, Nov. 13: Yep, back for a second time. This time more than the first, I realize how much stronger the second act is than the first.
79. Bob Dylan concert, Madison Square Garden, Nov. 13: To be blunt, I would never have attended this event if it hadn’t been paid for by NAJP. Am I glad I went? I suppose, from a purely sociological perspective, if only to view the aged ‘70s hippies dance around in their Eccos and Rockports trying to recapture a sliver of their pasts. (The times they are a changin’, and comfortable shoes and good dental plans have taken their place alongside peace and love.) I find I like the slower (and softer) Dylan songs, if only because they take full advantage of his gravelly style. (And say what you like, the man does have oodles of style.) The faster songs? Just more noisy rock band stuff.
80. “Into the Woods,” Broadhurst Theatre, Nov. 14: Foremost on the minds of the audience, I suppose, was the absence of Vanessa Williams -- with an understudy (Tracy Nicole Chapman) playing the part of the Witch. But I enjoyed this production nonetheless, though much more for the incredible music and lyrics than any standout performances. Watching the play (as opposed to listening to the CD) reminded me even more about how much it’s about relativism. Is it OK to lie a little? Or steal a little? Or deceive a little? Who decides when it’s too much? I cried on cue for “No One is Alone” and “Children Will Listen.” And the overarching theme -- that wishes come true, but not free -- truly resonated. “Into the Woods” is about saying goodbye -- to friends, to parents, to those who “leave you halfway through the wood.” But it’s also about how they’ll never truly leave you -- that as long as their memory is with you, they’ll always be there.
81. Whitney Museum of American Art, Nov. 15: After a chance to tour “An American Legacy: A Gift to New York,” a show that seems as devoted to massaging wealthy patrons as making any sort of artistic statement, we lunched (oh so classily -- I had an artichoke sandwich) with Max Anderson, the museum’s director, who explained the institution’s mission of finding and celebrating new American talent. Afterwards, a tour of the museum’s other collections, including its impressive cache of Edward Hopper work, including his “A Woman in the Sun” (my favorite), which manages to be both joyful (the bright possibilities of a sun-drenched day) and melancholy (the way that the sun exposes the tawdriness of lives.)
82. Screening of “Personal Velocity” and discussion with editor Sabine Hoffman, film school, Nov. 15: This Sundance favorite, shot on digital video, is a moving character study of three women on the cusp of greater things. Kyra Sedgwick plays an abused wife who finally decides to flee her husband; Parker Posey is a book editor slowly surrendering to her ambition; and Fairuza Balk ponders the meaning of her life after a brush with death. Of the three stories, the Posey piece is by far the most powerful: It flirts with the idea of not only accepting your flaws but turning them to your advantage. (The scene in which Posey’s character realizes that she’s going to leave her Very Nice Husband is wonderful: They’re at a fancy party with important people, and he talks to the waiter, a friend of his from school, all night. OK, so dump him. Hoffman used lots of editing tricks in this film, from stills to flashbacks to dreamy bits of fantasy, and her work adds heft and substance to “Personal Velocity.”
83. William Kentridge lecture, Schermerhorn Hall, Nov. 15: Attending this official university event was a logical next step from watching the artist at work in his studio. My feelings about his work: decidedly mixed. His animation is dreamy and beautiful to behold. But while I’m entranced by the idea of his shadow puppets striding through his frames, I can’t really tell what he’s trying to DO here. It almost seems like exquistely wrought stagecraft instead of fine art. (Indeed, he has used his shadows extensively as part of theater productions.) In his lecture, he did have an interesting point to make about the shadows on the wall that Plato talks about re his famous cave. When we see a duck shadow on the wall, Kentridge says we’re actually seeing three things: a shadow that we know does not represent reality; we see a hand casting a shadow (the stagecraft behind the moment, in other words); and, well, we’re seeing a duck on the wall. Instead of the willing suspension of disbelief when we absorb a stage performance -- the idea that we’re generously allowing actors, say, to “become” real so we can lose ourselves in the experience -- Kentridge maintains that it’s actually an UNwilling suspension of disbelief. Despite what our rational mind tells us, there’s at least a part of us that believes that the character we’re watching is real. (Or that it’s a real duck.) Otherwise, why would we waste the time? I thought it was funny that while Kentridge was elaborating on this theme, he himself was casting a shadow on the wall behind him.
84. “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Jean Cocteau Repertory Company, Bouwerie Lane Theatre, Nov. 17: An endearing version of the classic. Though I have to admit I still don’t understand why Algernon gets away with marrying Celia without having to change his name to Earnest, too.
85. “The New Gatekeepers: A Conference on Free Expression in the Arts,” journalism school, Nov. 20-21: An NAJP-sponsored conference. I wasn’t able to attend all the sessions because of classes and, um, because Kristin and I snuck out to see a matinee of “Movin’ Out,” but some of what I did see was intellectually stimulating.
Columbia president Lee Bollinger gave the keynote address, in which he outlined four basic points about free speech: 1) the Constitution may be more than 200 years old, but “free speech” is a 20th Century construct that came into place over the last 80 years; 2) Not all speech is protected -- there are many limits and exceptions; 3) It’s remarkable how far freedom of speech extends compared to other societies; and 4) the history of free speech ebbs and flows in terms of restrictions. The overwhelming question, Bollinger asked: What are the limits of state censorship? Such issues dominate 98% of cases. But there’s another dimension as well: How does the government use its funding power? Should it be a simple case of majority rules? What if the government were to fund an anti-smoking program, say, and the person in charge decided to make a pro-smoking statement?
Louis Menand, in a subsequent panel on the history of censorship, offered an interesting history of “The Birth of a Nation.” That film, which is remembered as much today for its virulent racism as its groundbreaking cinematic technique, was censored before release. Scenes of blacks raping white women were deleted, a pro-discrimination letter from Lincoln was deleted, and scenes of blacks being deported to Africa (with the title “Lincoln’s solution” were deleted). Should those scenes have been removed? Or should have even more of the film have been expunged? Movies weren’t given 1st Amendment protection until 1952. On one hand, the film is hailed as a classic that influenced filmmakers for years afterwards. On the other, it’s racist. Should it have been supressed?
A lively panel titled “Art Meets Entertainment” posed the issue of corporate domination of the media and the impact on art. Because of recent FCC rule changes, for example, companies can own a much larger number of radio stations than in the past. Does this stifle artists? Jennifer Toomey, executive director of the Future of Music Coalition, thinks so. She’s concerned about “bottlenecks” -- the fewer venues that are available to artists, and as gatekeeping power becomes even more concentrated, does it stifle expression? But then you get into a question of free market consumerism. Neal Gabler, author of “Life the Movie,” says that the real issue isn’t consolidation but the tyranny of advertisers who exclusively target the 18-34 age group. (Alas, older people like looking at younger people, countered Daniel Okrent, formerly of Time Inc., explaining that magazine covers featuring older people sell far less copies than those with a younger person on the cover. I was particularly taken with Douglas Rushkoff, author of “Coercion: Why We Listen to What ‘They’ Say,” who made a compelling argument for more outlets and more choices. In the end, I was struck by how consumer-based the panel was -- maybe it had to be, because that’s what the American mindset is based upon. But when has art ever comfortably merged with commerce? I guess the most important thing for the artist to remember is that “censorship” doesn’t extend in this country to repression of work (at least in most cases), and if your goal is to make art and display it, you’ll have a venue. How large that venue is, and (mostly unsaid) how rich you’ll get making your art, is a different question, and one that was left unsaid at the conference. (It took Tim Robbins speaking the next day at the film school to offer that viewpoint.)
86. “Movin’ Out,” Richard Rodgers Theater, Nov. 20: Directed and conceived by Twyla Tharp to music by Billy Joel. I’ll admit I was dubious going in, mostly because I love the standard American book-musical form so much. This is much more a traditional ballet. But I loved it. The dancing was exquisite, the storyline wrenching, the emotion on stage palpable. Part of the effect, I’ll admit, was due to real-life tragedy: Just days before, William Marrie, the dancer who would have played the role of Eddie at the Wednesday matinee, was killed in an automobile accident. I didn’t realize how much the show has to do with death (“Only the good die young”), and in fact the first act ends with a moving elegy to a young man killed in Vietnam. The tears on stage were real, just like the tears in the audience.
87. Screening of “Bob Roberts” and discussion with Tim Robbins, film school, Nov. 21: First of all, watching this brilliantly conceived political satire 10 years later was downright spooky: It keeps referring to President Bush, Saddam Hussein and a threatened invasion of Iraq. What always struck me about the film was how creepy Bob Roberts is and yet how charismatic he is at the same time; he’s like the old, bony man who still gets the younger woman because of sheer willpower. That’s Robbins’ energy, all the way, and it was no surprise that when he arrived after the film -- to thunderous applause -- that one student asked him if he had any ambitions to run for political office. (Nope, he replied: He thinks he can have much greater impact as an actor/director). Robbins was able to get such a risky and controversial film made because of his “heat” as an actor at the moment -- and it’s to his credit that he chose to spend that capital in the pursuit of making a meaningful movie rather than climbing the paycheck ladder. He reminded students that they should become filmmakers to be artists, not to be rich and famous; if the fame follows, fine, then you can use it to your advantage, but if you try merely for celebrity you’ll almost inevitably be chewed up and spit out by the Hollywood machine.
88. “Beach Radio,” CAP21 Theater, Nov. 21: A slight, mostly banal little musical about a bunch of New Jersey teen-agers spending the summer at the shore. Music by Gerard Kenny, book and lyrics by Drey Shepperd. If bland stuff like this can get produced Off-Off Broadway, why not “Lyin’ Up a Breeze”?
89. Screening of “The Safety of Objects” and discussion with director Rose Troche and author A.M. Homes, film school, Nov. 22: Troche (“Go Fish”) took on quite the adaptation challenge when she decided to make A.M. Homes’ collection of short stories into a film: She combined stories and characters and found a thread that linked them all with a sense of community. Some of the connections she made seem a little tenuous, such as the workaholic lawyer (Dermot Mulroney), passed over for promotion, who gets caught up in a radio-station giveaway in which his grieving neighbor (Glenn Close) is participating. But in other ways, these characters seem very much like they belong together, from the horny young teen boy who lusts after his sister’s Barbie to the weathered divorcee (Patricia Clarkson) who has a fling with the young neighbor man across the street. Through it all, the tragedy that overshadows the bunch is pretty conventional stuff: There was a terrible accident, and now that young man lies in a coma. It isn’t until the end of the film that we learn that his sister (the very fine Jessica Campbell) was in the other car involved in the accident. What really grabbed me was the delicate way that tragedy seems to sculpt the lives of all those around him, even in the periphery. There’s a beautiful closing shot using a crane: We watch the families at a backyard barbecue, and there’s a tinge of sadness in the air (Close’s character finally suffocates her comatose son out of pity). The camera looks straight down on the table with all gathered round, and then it climbs higher and higher, until we can see not only the entire backyard but the adjoining yards as well. The clear blue of a swimming pool on this side, a well manicured lawn on the other, kids chasing and running, people relaxing -- all seemingly oblivious to the drama resolving itself just a few feet away. It all somehow resonates with the theme of human connection.
90. “Burn This,” Union Square Theatre, Nov. 23: My second Lanford Wilson play in a month, and I can’t say that I’m emerging as his biggest fan. This revival, which starred Elisabeth Shue and Peter Sarsgaard (taking over for Edward Norton and Catherine Keener), has an air of weightiness stamped all over it, from the title to the melancholingly minimal piano score, and I kept waiting for the “bigness” to emerge: Just what major theme will the play pound home as Anna (Shue) moves from grief over her dancer roommate’s death to an attempt at normalcy? Despite the buildup, it’s a pretty tame outcome: She falls for her roommate’s older, weirder brother, Pale (Sarsgaard), who bursts into her life in an alcoholic blur soon after the funeral, remains to seduce her, vanishes in an obnoxious-guy see-ya-later nod the next morning, and evidently manages to completely screw up her life. That Anna obviously had a crush on her (very gay) roommate obviously factors into the equation, and it’s interesting to ponder the way the human heart can “adapt.” After all, he’s an older genetic stamp of the same guy -- why not fall for him? Yet for all its solemnity, “Burn This” remains yet one more awkward love story forged in a moment of loss, and the characters themselves only rarely connect emotionally with the audience. Surprisingly, I found myself more taken with the play’s secondary leads: Burton (Ty Burrell) as the spoiled screenwriter in love with Anna who’s “never lost anything,” and Larry (Dallas Roberts), as Anna’s surviving gay roommate, whose steely quips hides a quiet loneliness. At one point, a distraught Burton, upset that Anna obviously isn’t interested in him, lashes out at Larry, asking him, “What is she going to do, spend the rest of her life living here with YOU?” The look on Larry’s face is so sad, so open, that it’s impossible not to identify with his own hurt.
91. “The Rivals,” Florence Gould Hall, Nov. 25: This bare-bones production, more a staged reading than a full realization, was a hoot. The Actors Company Theatre focuses on neglected or rarely produced plays of literary merit with a focus on creating theater from its essence: the text and the actor’s ability to bring it to life. Ever since I read “The Rivals” in high school, I’d wanted to see this witty snippet of fun from Richard Brinsley Sheridan. From Mrs. Malaprop to the machinations of Lydia Languish, it’s a cutting commentary on the foibles of high society, without the occasional over-archness of an Oscar Wilde.
92. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nov. 26: An interesting guided tour of European Period Rooms and Decorative Arts. Among the highlights: The Met recreated a bedroom from the Louis 14 era. (Only the king and queen could have arms on their chairs; the princes could have a back on their chairs; everyone else had to stand or sit on a stool.) Marie Antoinette’s boudoir fire screen -- in vogue so ladies’ heavy wax makeup wouldn’t melt too close to the flame. We take furniture for granted these days, but back in the 17th and 18th Centuries, it was more valuable than a fine painting. Wealthy people would display their furniture, not use it. And as far as the museum recreating the rooms of the lower classes, it simply can’t be done -- no one bothered to keep the crude wooden chairs and straw mattresses in use. Also: “Blithe Spirit: The Windsor Set” at the Costume Institute (glam evening gowns of the ‘30s) and “Theodore Chasseriau: The Unknown Romantic” (known for his portrait of his two sisters, but I couldn’t really get into him).
93. “Blue/Orange,” Atlantic Theater Company, Nov. 27: Sort of like Mamet meets the mental-health profession. Christopher (a jazzed-up Harold Perrineau, Jr.) has spent a month in a London psychiatric hospital, where he’s been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. He thinks his father is Idi Amin, and when asked to describe the color of an orange, he says it’s blue. (He works at a fruit stand, and as he measuredly points out, such an inclination could hurt him in his daily work.) His doctor, Bruce (Glenn Fitzgerald), thinks he’s schizophrenic and wants to keep him in the hospital. But Bruce’s supervisor, Robert (an arch and slightly too Machiavelian Zeljko Ivanek), thinks Christopher should be released. Though it’s ostensibly about the politics of psychiatry, including a slightly wacky detour into the ethnic underpinnings of mental illness (Robert has a theory that Afro-Caribbeans have more psychiatric problems because of their family upbringing), I found “Blue/Orange” to be much more potent when it comes to professional jealousy. Is it because that the personalities of Bruce and Robert fundamentally clash? Or is it because Robert sees in Bruce a younger, more idealistic version of himself and resents the possibilities that still lie before him? Not a totally satisfying play, in part because the conflict between doctors is acted out like a trial with only the patient (and audience) as a jury. Just who are they trying to convince? The set by Robert Brill -- a cool cube of a space, all subtle shades of blue except for a bowl filled with oranges at the focal point -- was slightly sinister and tremendously effective. Directed by Neil Pepe.
94. Macys Thanksgiving Parade, Nov. 28: What a perch: I got to watch the parade from the fifth floor of a gorgeous apartment at the corner of 75th Street and Central Park West belonging to Oliver Staley’s parents. Talk about a surreal experience: You look out the window and there’s a huge Charlie Brown balloon floating by. A fascinating exercise in scale.
95. “Lucia di Lammermoor,” Metropolitan Opera, Nov. 29: A grand opera, indeed: There were no less than seven major sets for this extravagant production, all of them recreating the cathedral-like splendor of Ravenswood Castle in Scotland, where Gaetano Donizetti’s tragic romance unwinds predictably and movingly. Lucia (a vibrant Ruth Ann Swenson) loves Edgardo (a hunky Marcelo Alverez), but her brother has different plans for her: She’s supposed to marry the snippy Arturo in order to cement a family alliance. (The opera is set in the end of the 17th Century, when the Episcopalians and Presbyterians were duking it out.) The famous “crazy scene” in the third act, when it’s discovered that Lucia has butchered her new husband, was phenomenal: Swenson’s voice purred and squeaked and trilled with such wild abandon she really did seem a little crazy. Oh, and a great seat for this opera: I moved from standing-room in the first act to the $150 seats in the second.
96. “October,” Butler Library video, Nov. 29: The second in my Eisenstein series. To see the famous shot of the dangling white horse was fascinating. It’s a testament to Eisenstein’s filmmaking that his depiction of the capture of the White Palace is sometimes used in documentaries about the event today -- even though the whole thing was obviously staged.
97. American Museum of the Moving Image, Nov. 30: A smart, interesting museum in Astoria. Lots of exhibits of early filmmaking and early TV, plus a wonderful collection of Robert De Niro’s costumes and the original chariot from Ben Hur. Must come back and see a movie here sometime.
98. “Crowns,” Second Stage Theatre, Nov. 30: Adorn your head, the Bible says, and African-American women have long taken the proscription seriously. For generations, black women wore hats -- especially to church, the place where you could see and be seen. Writer/director Regina Taylor adapted the book (by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry) into a series of vignettes that capture the dignity of hats -- and the women who wear them. What really makes the play is the incredible gospel music, including an on-fire Lillias White belting out a version of “His Eye is on the Sparrow” that brought down the house. The play’s narrative thread -- about a surly teen-ager, Yolanda (Carmen Ruby Floyd), who thinks of her grandmother’s hat obsession as old-lady stuff) -- is a bit a thin, especially in the beginning. It isn’t until more than halfway through the play that we learn that Yolanda has recently lost her beloved brother and moved in with her grandmother. And several songs that attempt to combine down-home gospel enthusiasm with Yolanda’s cynical rap about the world seem awkward and disjointed. But once Yolanda’s emotional through line is better established, the show warms up. And the glorious music more than makes up for it all.
99. “Dinner at Eight,” Lincoln Center Theater at the Vivian Beaumont, Dec. 1: A dated, bloated, creaky production that comes across as a strained museum piece rather than offering any contemporary insight. It’s clear why director Gerald Gutierrez wanted to restage this play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber: It deals with the super-rich during the Depression confronted with the loss of their own fortunes. (You can practically feel the tech bubble burst over the audience’s heads.) That the characters include an unscrupulous, company-raiding robber baron is the most contemporary thing in the story -- even in times of economic distress, it seems, a certain minority get even richer. But the rest of the tangled plot, which centers on an old-money, scrupled shipping magnate named Oliver Jordan (James Rebhorn) who is losing his grip on his business, is on the musty side. Oliver’s wife, Millicent (Christine Ebersole) is oblivious to everything but her precious Friday night dinner party, to which she has invited an assortment of friends and people she loathes. (High society demands strong digestive skills.) The web between the guests (and household staff) is rather tangled: The doctor is having an affair with the bad guy’s wife, her daughter is seeing the washed-up movie star, the maid has married the butler without realizing he’s already married. The play has a whopping 25 speaking parts, and there are so many subplots you need a diagram. (Two intermissions and a 190-minute running time adds to the sense of lethargy.) Add to that a moroseful ending (poor Oliver Packard doesn’t have long to live, we learn) and a good-old-fashioned head-in-the-gas-fireplace suicide, and “Dinner at Eight” is little more than an extended episode of gastronomic distress.
100. Whitney Museum of American Art, Dec. 4: A look with visiting Kaywin at “When Crafts Became Art: The Quilts of Gee’s Bend.” Beautiful, abstract designs made from the 1930s to the 1960s by African-American women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Michael Kimmelman of the Times described this show as one of the finest examples of American modern art -- ever -- and while I can’t say it didn’t move me to that extent, it was beautiful. The abstract designs are purposeful, colorful, even daring if you think of quilts in terms of rigid squares. These quilts almost seem to dance on the walls.