Category: Arts
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The Good, Hard Work of “Hail, Caesar!”
The Coen Brothers’ new movie, Hail, Caesar!, shows you the man behind the curtain at a Hollywood studio. Set during the 1950’s, the story involves Josh Brolin’s “Everyman”, Eddie Mannix, which is also a fortuitous alliteration. The first shot of the film shows Eddie deep in remorse, alone in a Confessional. He has failed to…
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Seattle 2025 Fall Dramatic Arts Preview
While we cannot right the Earth’s tilt, there are some consolation prizes for contending with the dark. With most everyone hunkering down, the dramatic arts kick into high gear again, and really thrive, starting in the fall. … In the land of the Big Dumper, let’s get our Big Bottoms off the couch and into…
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Taste the Cleve, America
Wonderful! A World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs is a Series between two North Coast teams that have each suffered for such a long time. Whoever wins, it will make many of us sports fans – who tend to root for underdogs – happy. (Those of you who “like a winner”…
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The Have Nots! Have Lots, Piccolo Spoleto Review
…Another scene had Rucker and Finch playing a premise completely devised by the audience — acting out “that famous Australian custom of flossing after sex.” This is when the night becomes great. Audience members have the goofiest things to say, and as Tavares says, “we try not to turn anything down.” So what you get…
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Music in Time, Spoleto Review 2001
Conductor John Kennedy and Pianist Sarah Cahill, and others, team up for an amazing Spoleto performance of contemporary classical music. (Photo credit — hinnk — of Ms. Cahill performing at Berkeley Art Museum.)
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Music in Time, Spoleto’s Contemporary Classical Music Showcase, a Preview
2001 Archives My interview with John Kennedy. Every Spoleto, I was most reliably excited by Kennedy’s curated contemporary classical music series. For this year, 2001, we got to hear music by Ruth Crawford Seeger, in honor of her centennial, including Nine Preludes for Piano, Music for Small Orchestra, and Three Songs, as well as some…
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Laurie Anderson’s Moby Dick, Spoleto Festival Review 1999
“Up front, like Ahab guiltily admits in the beginning of Laurie Anderson’s Songs and Stories from Moby Dick, “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never read the book! It’s too big!” … Unfortunately, the show’s not much more than that: a “reading’s cool” PSA for technophiles.” From the S.E. Barcus Charleston City Paper archives, 1999.
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Kurt Weill’s Die Burgschaft, Spoleto Festival Review
“Die Burgschaft is the story of Mattes and Orth, two men in the mythical land of Urb who witness the gradual and tragic degradation of their trust in one another because of the dividing and corrupting influence of money and power.” From the S.E. Barcus Charleston City Paper archives, 1999.
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Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Spoleto Review 2001
Many in the audience seemed truly touched by this “jewel of Western opera repertoire,” as Director Chen Shi-Zheng has called it.
S.E. Barcus 