Category: Performance
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Passengers, on Earth
Soon, after the wonderful spinning rope work by Eduardo de Azevedo Grillo, I briefly thought the story might revolve around two lone souls who were becoming lovers, our trapeze artist and our rope artist. But no, it is another vignette, another brief chance moment in ‘time’ — with no ‘main character,’ no real ‘destination’, no…
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Macbeth and Macbeth and Macbeth: Three Weird Macbeths
More power to Daniel Craig for trying to get our butts in the seats for a Shakespeare play! He doesn’t HAVE to do this. You get the feeling he WANTS to do this. I take it back – give the tickets out to the unruly high school kids. It’s the whole point. Go stars, go! …
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Ghosts — The Play that Returned
Thus, on the topic of religion oppressing women, we need a MUCH more impassioned art, that speaks to all women, not just the Gen X and Boomer Rep audiences. An art that really captures today, the here-and-now. While I love the idea of this play, this production just doesn’t do that for me. It feels…
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Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Pelléas and Mélisande” is a French-styled “Total Work of Art”
The “hero’s welcome” for composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen at the opening night performance of the L.A. Philharmonic’s production of Debussy’s “Pelléas and Mélisande” hit with a refreshing coolness of modesty; with an apropos absence of fanfare perfectly suited to the production at hand. Salonen so casually enters while other philharmonic members are still trickling in that…
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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.
S.E. Barcus 