Stage Voices

BOOK--IAN DONALDSON: ‘BEN JONSON, A LIFE’

When Ben Jonson died on August 16, 1637, “the crowd that gathered included ‘all or the greatest part of nobility.’ ” Shakespeare, in contrast, was “buried quietly in the chancel of his parish church in Stratford-upon-Avon, having earned a modest place of honor from his status as a wealthy and respected citizen.”  Jonson, “more visible” in his time, “more knowable, [as a] more coherent figure than Shakespeare”  was “a difficult, quarrelsome, vain pedantically learned, hard-drinking member of the wrong faith, tainted with a criminal record; a satirist of court manners accused in the past of sedition, a man with known enemies in the inner circle of James,” the new king. “In much the same way that the name of Byron or Dickens, in an age of speedier communication, would later resonate through Europe . . . . Jonson . . . emerged as Britain’s first literary celebrity” and first Poet Laureate.

WAS CHARLIE CHAPLIN REALLY FRENCH?

 

(Tom Whitehead’s article appeared in the Guardian, 2/17; via the Drudge Report.)

Intelligence officers could find no trace of the actor's birth in Britain despite Chaplin always claiming he was born in London in 1889.

The mystery surrounding his origins emerged when the US authorities asked MI5 to look into the comic  actor's background after he left America in 1952 under a cloud of suspicion over his communist links.

But British officers could find no birth certificate and the earliest official record was a passport issued in 1920.

They investigated suggestions he was born in Fontainebleau, near Paris, or nearby Melun, while the Americans claimed his real name was Israel Thornstein and raised the idea he may have been a Russian Jew.

(Read more)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9086510/MI5-files-Was-Chaplin-really-a-Frenchman-and-called-Thornstein.html

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***** GEORGE FARQUHAR: ‘THE RECRUITING OFFICER’ (REVIEW PICK, UK)

 

(Charles Spencer’s article appeared in the Telegraph, 2/15.)

Josie Rourke’s campaign as the new artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse gets off to a tremendous start with George Farquhar’s wonderful English play about soldiers and townsfolk in early 18th century Shrewsbury.

Though usually described as a Restoration comedy The Recruiting Officer (1706) is worlds removed from the heartless hermetic plays of the period set in high society London.

There is a whiff of clean country air and a sense of new horizons about it, and though the comedy is often bawdy and robust, there is a generosity of spirit, and lack of viciousness about The Recruiting Officer that proves hugely attractive.

(Read more)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9082192/The-Recruiting-Officer-Donmar-Warehouse-review.html

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WATKINS/ALLEN: ‘DEATH AND HARRY HOUDINI’ (REVIEW PICK, CHI)

 

(Chris Jones’s article appeared in the Chicago Tribune, 1/30. The video clip, starring Watkins, refers to a previous production of the show.)

Of all Harry Houdini's great feats of daring, none thrilled audiences as much as the Chinese Water Torture Cell, a transparent, fish tank-like device filled with gallons of water into which the favorite son of Appleton, Wisc., would be lowered, head first. The cover would be padlocked after the great escapologist held his breath and, with manacles around his feet, took what seemed to be a fatal dive.

Even several minutes into the trick, audiences would be able to steal a view of the submerged Houdini, still under water and beginning to turn blue.

The House Theatre's riveting "Death and Harry Houdini," which opened Sunday night at the Chopin Theatre, ends with a detailed re-creation of that very trick, performed by Dennis Watkins, a local actor and magician with an obsessive interest in Houdini and a man who has closely studied his greatest illusions and learned how to do them in homage to the master. But Houdini did that trick mostly in big, proscenium theaters. Watkins does it in sufficiently close proximity that the front rows can feel the splashes.

(Read more)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/theaterloop/ct-ent-0131-death-houdini-review-20120130,0,6424198.column

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IMPROBABLE: ‘THE DEVIL AND MISTER PUNCH’ (REVIEW PICK, UK)

(Lyn Gardner’s article appeared in the Guardian, 2/10.)

Punch and Judy are 350 years old this year – their first recorded performance in England dates from 1662 – and Improbable celebrate in style with Julian Crouch's down-at-heel vaudeville show, which allows the irrepressible wife-beating, child-slaying, death-defying Punch full rein. Even the Devil ("You're looking a little stressed," Mr Punch tells him) is tricked by the delinquent puppet, who proves that when it comes to pulling the strings he's really the one in charge.

In Improbable's vision, Messrs Harvey and Hovey, two bowler-hatted, unsuccessful travelling showmen, are putting on a Punch and Judy show. But as the story develops, relationships are thrown into sharp relief. It turns out that – as many have long suspected – the Pit theatre situated in the bowels of the Barbican is hell itself, a place where the show endlessly goes on.

(Read more)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/feb/10/the-devil-and-mister-punch-review

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JEFFREY ZASLOW, REST IN PEACE (1958-2012)

(Stephen Miller’s and Douglas Belkin’s article appeared in the Wall Street Journal, 2/11; Zaslow was a friend from many years ago.)

Jeffrey Zaslow, a longtime Wall Street Journal writer and best-selling author with a rare gift for writing about love, loss, and other life passages with humor and empathy, died at age 53 on Friday of injuries suffered in a car crash in northern Michigan.

He died after losing control of his car while driving on a snowy road and colliding with a truck, according to his wife and the Antrim County Sheriff's Office. The condition of the truck driver wasn't available.

(Read more)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577215574045345682.html

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ANNIE BAKER: 'BODY AWARENESS' (REVIEW PICK, SF)

 

(Robert Hurwitt's article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, 2/4.)

It's Body Awareness Week at little, liberal Shirley State College in tiny Shirley, Vt., and the fervent lesbian feminist professor who organized it isn't happy about the female nude photographs displayed in the student union for the occasion. Even worse, in Annie Baker's hilarious "Body Awareness" at the Aurora Theatre, the highly suspect male photographer is a guest in her house. And her partner is considering posing for him.

A lot more is about to go wrong for Amy Resnick's delightfully dogmatic academic Phyllis and Jeri Lynn Cohen's no less politically correct but perhaps perilously more open-minded partner, Joyce. But much more goes right in director Joy Carlin's fine-tuned production that opened Thursday as the anchor of the Aurora's annual Global Age Project new plays festival.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/03/DDR31N0OVK.DTL#ixzz1m1yB3tsG

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KATE FODOR: ‘RX’ (REVIEW PICK, NY)

 

(Charles Isherwood’s article appeared in the New York Times, 2/7.)

Do you ever stare at your cubicle walls and see the bars of a prison cell? Or spend way too much time pondering your lunch options: the Vietnamese sandwich place or the taco truck? Can’t remember how the dreary workdays would pass before the advent of Facebook?

There’s a pill for that feeling, a new wonder drug that will banish all thoughts of discontent, boredom and anomie that might assail you during the long trek from 9 to 5. Pop it once a day, and you’ll find yourself buzzing with excitement about that meeting to schedule more meetings.

(Read more)

http://theater.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/theater/reviews/marin-hinkle-in-rx-by-kate-fodor-at-59e59-theaters.html?hpw

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H IS FOR DAVID HARE

 

(Michael Billington’s article appeared in the Guardian, 1/31.)

I'm currently reading Benjamin Disraeli's Sybil, which offers a staggeringly vivid picture of the Victorian gulf between rich and poor. It was one of a number of works in the 1840s dubbed "condition of England" novels, and I was thinking how well the term could be applied to the plays of David Hare. The big difference is that Hare, apart from anatomising England, has also examined Chinese communism (in Fanshen [paywall], 1975), the politics of international aid-giving (in A Map of the World [paywall], 1982) and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1998's Via Dolorosa. Hare, to his credit, is as much concerned with the state of the globe as that of the nation.

(Read more)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/jan/31/h-for-hare-a-z-modern-drama

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BOOK: DEBBIE REYNOLDS MEMOIR TO MORROW

 

(from Lunch Weekly, 2/7)

Actress Debbie Reynolds' UNSINKABLE, the 79-year-old's "definitive memoir and tell-all," (she published a book in 1988, when we called them autobiographies, and says now, "When I read the optimistic ending of that book now, I can't believe how naïve I was when I wrote it"), to Lynn Grady at William Morrow, with Jennifer Brehl editing, for publication in 2013, by Dan Strone at Trident Media Group (world).

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TOONS: CAROL BURNETT IS BACK IN ‘THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY’

  

(Via the Nelson Agency) 

Carol Burnett will be featured as the voice of "Hara" in Disney’s upcoming animation adventure, The Secret World of Arrietty, opening in theatres on February 17.

Residing quietly beneath the floorboards are little people who live undetected in a secret world to be discovered, where the smallest may stand tallest of all. From the legendary Studio Ghibli ("Spirited Away," "Ponyo") comes "The Secret World of Arrietty," an animated adventure based on Mary Norton’s acclaimed children’s book series "The Borrowers."

THURSDAY, FEB 9: Carol will be appearing on Conan on TBS.

Check your local listings for the channel and time.

MONDAY, FEB 13: Carol will appear on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS. Check your local listings for the channel and time.

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