TheTempest at Two

I've always thought of the seasonal pleasures of outdoor Shakespeare as something best reserved for evening, when the sun's down and the air might be at least marginally cooler than in the afternoon.

So I was bemused to learn that the Boomerang Theatre Company's production of The Tempest is performed in the heat of the day--matinees only.

But it had been way too long since I'd seen The Tempest, outdoors or in, so today I hied myself up to Central Park West in time for what would have been a 2 o'clock curtain, if there were a curtain.

Unlike some other companies that do summer Shakespeare, the Boomerang doesn't make their audience move--a good thing on a muggy summer afternoon. And though the ground where I pitched my blanket was mostly dust, tall trees provided ample shade.

Soon, the play cast its spell, and I forgot all about the heat. Something about the green canopy, the stage of rocks and dirt, and actors almost close enough to touch made me feel as if I were on Prospero's island, where it is often, if not always day.

Weather permitting you have five chances to catch this charming production: Sunday, June 27, and July 10, 11, 17, and 18.


http://www.boomerangtheatre.org

When Neo-Futurists Perform

As the weekend approaches, I'm wondering what the New York Neo-Futurists will be up to tonight and tomorrow--which of the playlets Jim, Christine, Mitch, and I saw on April 2nd will still be on their menu of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, in which they attempt to perform 30 plays in 60 minutes.

I enjoyed every one of the 27 or so they managed, but here, in reverse numerical order, are the titles of those I remember vividly weeks later (etc. denotes an abbreviated title that is part of the performance):

25. Politics 101. American Values. a sampling

21. These Two Gay Men Are Gonna Pick a Hottie in the Audience. etc.

20. Book Report: The Ramayana by Valmiki

18. Meryl Streep Will Drink Your Blood Now

17. June 5, 2002 (apology to an umbrella skeleton)

14. "Kill my grandmother,please!"

13. ART CLASS

6. Congressional Symphony (Health Care Debate in Three Movements)

4. onion and absence

1. Bad Paddy


The one I was most hoping they'd get to but didn't:

19. Neo Geographic


In theory, the audience picks what's performed by calling out numbers, but I'm guessing the Neo-Futurists also consult their own druthers.

Every weekend they replace 3 or so playlets, so every few months they're performing a completely new show.

The New York Neo-Futurists perform Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind every Friday and Saturday at 10:30 pm at the Kraine Theater, 85 East 4 St. If you buy a ticket online, it costs $16; if you wait till you get there, you'll pay $10 plus the number you get rolling 1 die. Discounts are sometimes available online for TDF members.

For a history of the company (spun-off from the Chicago original), their aesthetics, class offerings, and samples of their work, go to:

www.nynf.org

The last slice

To the salon I attended on Sunday, one of the other guests brought a savory wonder: a kind of Spanish torta--a potato-and-onion pie--which he'd enriched with pesto and chanterelles. (Artichokes, too? I'm wondering now.)

The dish was rich, so the slices he'd cut were appropriately small, making enough to go around. After everyone had had a shot at them, I went back for seconds.

On the way out an hour later, I noticed, amazingly, one last piece in the pan. Tempting though it was, I resisted, thinking it should go to our host, Jerome, or to its creator, or to a remaining guest, if there was one, who'd had only one slice.

Or did it languish and get tossed. . . ?

I sure hope not!

Hamlet in motion

I had a similar experience some years ago seeing Hamlet--I forget where, but likely an outdoor production: Late in the play, somewhere in Act IV , I realized I'd somehow missed the "To be or not to be" soliloquy. What happened: did the director cut it, the actor forget it, or had I somehow spaced out?

This time, I knew I'd paid full attention to every gripping moment of New York Classical Theatre's production of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark at the World Financial Center (given the echoes, I did miss some words here and there).

But I'd arrived a few minutes late--Horatio et al. were talking about the apparition they'd just seen--and reading the program on the way home, I realized in those minutes I'd missed the famous soliloquy.

The synopsis in the program begins:

"Inside Elsinmore castle, Hamlet, consumed by grief over his father's untimely death and, followed by his mother's marriage to his uncle Claudius two months later, wrestles with taking his own life. He chooses to live."

So director Stephen Burdman must have moved the soliloquy to the front of the play--before the familiar version actually begins.

Looking though the play at home, I found the soliloquy in Act III, Scene I, delivered as Hamlet makes his way to Ophelia, whom he will shortly tell, "I loved you not," and urge "Get thee to a nunnery."

That evening, despite the powerful performances of both Justin Blanchard as Hamlet and Ginny Myers Lee as Ophelia, I'd found something emotionally lacking and oddly implausible about that wrenching scene. Now I understood what had been missing (for me at least)--those agonized words of Hamlet to himself directly prepare for the terrible, life-shattering ones he will speak to Ophelia.

New York Classical Theatre specializes in outdoor ambulatory productions (this was their first indoors), in which audiences move with the actors every couples of scenes. I saw one in Central Park a few years ago--either a comedy or Henry IV, Pt. II--and whatever it was, it felt to me almost over before it had begun: Shakespeare Lite.

That this Hamlet, at little more than half its usual length, is not Shakespeare Lite is due to the fine performances.

I admired Justin Blanchard's Hamlet so much that I'm thinking about returning tonight to catch the soliloquy I missed--and to see again his extraordinary transformation from the Prince of Denmark to the imagined ghost of his father.

On second thought, I'll wait for a chance to see this talented actor deliver the soliloquy in the usual place--in another, fuller production (an opportunity devoutly to be wished).

You have one more chance to catch Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, at the World Financial Center: tonight at 7.

Don't be late.
http://www.newyorkclassical.org/

http://www.artsworldfinancialcenter.com/index.htm

My favorite bonnet. . .

. . . at the Easter Parade was one Jim didn't manage to snap: with fuzzy yellow balls covering the crown and a wide brim of tapered ivory petals (cotton canvas?), drooping a bit,

it was a giant daisy.





Make mine a sunflower. . .

Kickstarter Update

Congratulations to the City Reliquary, which just met their Kickstarter funding goals, thanks to backers like you and me.

Can't wait to get my street sweeping bristle!

http://kickstarter.com/projects

http://www.cityreliquary.org

A Tale of Two Events, Part II

ShowBiz Expo East

Exhausted though I was from concentrating on 144 performances by the end of TRU's Saturday auditions, I'd have returned to watch more on Sunday had I not already paid to attend ShowBiz Expo on Sunday.

It had been a few years since I'd taken in the Expo--a trade show held on East and West coasts, featuring all kinds of equipment and services for those working in film and theater.

Now and then I'd gone to a panel at the Expo, but mostly I'd just cruised the exhibits, which are free. In my film school days, I remember being dazzled by major equipment on display, grabbing copies of Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and all manner of other trade publications, and talking with reps of film offices from Montana to Oklahoma to Connecticut.

Last time I showed up at ShowBiz Expo, after not having been in a while, I wasn't willing to wait an hour in the huge, slow line of those who hadn't paid for priority admission.

This year, I decided to spend the $10 required to avoid the line, and also paid for a panel, a directory of attendees, and the after-party.

I was shocked by the difference since my last visit. The exhibition space had shrunk--and where were Hollywood Reporter, Kodak, and DuArt?

There were, however, many, many more vendors of services for actors than I remembered: headshots, workshops, etc. Ironically, I thought, given the opportunity TRU offered that very weekend, actors could pay for individual auditions.

The one panel I had paid to attend didn't match the description of what I had signed up for, and was, in effective, a promotional event for the two panelists' business, which should have been free.

I saw my fill of the exhibits in an hour or so and returned home.

The after-party, from 6:30 to 9:30 in a downtown lounge, had, for my taste, music that was too loud, light that was too low, and way too little food to accompany the open bar.

Luckily, I'd eaten a bit at the TRU auditors' reception, where I'd started the evening, and where, in retrospect, I should have lingered longer.

And I'd known that, arriving at the Expo party at 7:30, I risked missing the food.

"What food?" said a guy who'd been there since the beginning, when I asked how the food had been. "They just brought out a couple of few platters like that one."

"That one" was a plate-sized tray of tiny egg rolls. Maybe 20 minutes later, I encountered another of miniature, highly salted cakes of something meant to be crab.

I spoke with a beginning actress who had auditioned with her sister. "It wasn't what I expected," she said. "There was one guy, who I guess was a producer. My sister and I did our thing, and he didn't say a word." I wondered how much she'd paid for the privilege.

The last person I spoke with at the party--an exhibitor--gave me his opinion of the organizers' attitude: "We need to extract as much money as we can from these folks, and we have one day to do it."

Sounds about right, I thought.

I won't be back.