What were the top stories of 2003? Here’s our updated archive of year-end stories from publications around the world.
Month: December 2003
Return of the Kings
Just in case you missed it (as if that were even possible,) Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane are back on Broadway, reprising their starring roles in The Producers. “The two actors, whose performances so delighted critics and audiences that the show has not been able to sustain its once formidable ticket sales without them, were enticed to return for 14 weeks at a salary of $100,000 a week each, an enormous sum for the theater.” It’s a situation that seemed ripe for a huge, high-profile flop, but the reviews this morning, a day after the pair’s re-debut, are unanimous in their assessment: Lane and Broderick own these roles, and the public is unlikely to accept anyone else.
Producing Chemistry
The Broadway public is on record: Lane and Broderick are Bialystock and Bloom, and no one else will do. Michael Riedel agrees, and chalks it up to the easy, almost improvisational interaction between the two stars: “They broke each other up several times throughout the show, and, during the final number, when Broderick dropped his cane, Lane burst out in joyous laughter. That chemistry is in many ways a key to the success of the show, which, at its heart, is a love story between two lonely misfits.”
Resolutions of a Critic
Paul Horsley has a few things he’s hoping to do better in 2004 than he did in 2003, and he’s not afraid to share. “I will write less, listen more… I will not whine… I will have agendas. A newspaper critic has two basic functions: to cover the arts news and to comment on it. I’m going to work harder in my commentary to uphold certain things that I deem to be worthy of further support.” Horsley also resolves not to be too nice, and laments having left a particular sentence out of a recent review of a Mahler symphony: “We wept at the usual places, but for different reasons.”
Ararat To Get A Showing In Turkey
“Ararat, the film by Toronto-based Atom Egoyan about the genocide of Armenians at the time of the First World War, can be shown in Turkey but at least one scene will be cut, a Turkish culture ministry official said yesterday. The film by Egoyan, a Canadian of Armenian heritage, tells of the plight of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey when a 1915-23 campaign to force them from the eastern part of the country left as many as 1.5 million dead. Turkey says the figures are inflated and that Armenians died during civil unrest and not as the result of a planned campaign.”
A Nation Of Idiots? Or Just Navel-Gazers Addicted To TV?
“The American intelligentsia is anxious these days… Anyone who watches television for more than five minutes can be forgiven for worrying about dumbing down, but the past year has seen a lively renewal of debate on this perennial topic.” From Terry Teachout’s blog post (here on ArtsJournal) calling for a re-embrace of 1950s-style “middlebrow” culture, to Curtis White’s disgust with a new breed of self-important intellectual wannabes which “wants to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and has bought an SUV with the intent of visiting it,” America’s thinkers are unanimous that we need more old-fashioned thinking in our lives, but Canadian Kate Taylor feels they may be missing the point.
The Curtain Falls On Boston’s Nutcracker
The struggles of ballet companies across the country are well-documented, but you’ll pardon the Boston Ballet for feeling specially cursed this year. Last night, the curtain fell on the company’s last performance of the Nutcracker for 2003, and possibly forever. Having been informed that the Wang Theatre, the company’s Nutcracker home for 35 years, would be replacing the classic ballet with a traveling show next December, Boston Ballet is desperately searching for a new home in a city famously lacking in performance space. With Nutcracker typically bringing in as much as 50%-60% of a ballet company’s annual revenues, no one even wants to think of what could happen if Boston Ballet can’t mount the holiday show.
Another Failure In South Florida
When the Florida Philharmonic folded last summer, many expected its audience to find a home with other local classical groups such as the New World Symphony, or the Miami Chamber Symphony. But the MCS hasn’t performed since February, due to a cash shortage, and this week, the chamber ensemble officially cancelled the 2003-04 season. As in the case of the Florida Phil, donors to the MCS have been reluctant to throw good money after bad, and the group has not been able to stabilize its finances in the 11 months since its troubles became public knowledge.
Theoretically Speaking…Theory Might Be Dead
For two decades now, the world of humanities studies has been ruled by theory. “But there are reports from the academic world that theory may have run out steam. ‘Confidence in the technology of theory has faded. Theory’s opacities and arcane terms may be entrenched, but ‘they don’t come at you with the old assurance and swagger.”
Russell Resigns P.S.122
After 21 years, Mark Russell has resigned as executive director of New York’s P.S. 122. “In addition to the widespread kudos for the man who helped launch Whoopi Goldberg, Eric Bogosian, Blue Man Group, John Leguizamo, and the Hip Hop Theater Festival—and brought heating, lighting, and a managerial infrastructure into the once abandoned public-school building—artists and producers of experimental work also sounded the alarm over the possibility that a corporate mentality might replace the aesthetic vision and commitment that have characterized Russell’s tenure.”