Category: Theater
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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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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.
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Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, Spoleto Review 2001
“For all the kitsch and Brecht, what I would’ve loved to see was a critique of this dopey and insulting take on women….”
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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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Spoleto Festival 2001 Preview
2001 Spoleto Festival Preview. From S.E. Barcus Charleston City Paper archives.
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Stephen Sondheim’s Company, Piccolo Spoleto Festival Preview
The musical “Company,” by Stephen Sondheim, is being revived by the Footlight Players for Piccolo Spoleto due to its outstanding success in January. “Company” is considered a “concept” musical due to its non-linear form of storytelling. It washes over you with a collage of relationships, giving you a better understanding of what it’s like to…
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Eric Bogosian’s Suburbia, review
1998 Archives My Charleston City Paper review of Eric Bogosian’s Suburbia, produced by the College of Charleston, October, 1998. S.E. Barcus is also on Facebook.
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Charles Busch’s Psycho Beach Party, review
“Besides the funniest script this year with the best acting, you get dance numbers … Metts opens the show with some sexy freak-out strobelight hula hoop madness that gets everyone rocking.”
S.E. Barcus 