“And again a spasm went through his shoulder and he let out a low moan. Each time he sensed that his power, the current of his will, was not penetrating me and was meeting resistance, he experienced physical pain. … And in this there was no pretence, as he was evidently trying to conceal both the spasms in his shoulder and his strange, low groan.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Pakistan’s Cross Between Kurt Vonnegut And Anderson Cooper
“As a novelist and a journalist, [Mohammed Hanif] has become perhaps the foremost observer of Pakistan’s contradictions and absurdities.”
Julio Bocca Returns To His Ballet Company, A Month After His Mysterious Departure
At the beginning of April, Bocca suddenly announced that, for “personal reasons,” he was temporarily stepping down as artistic director of Uruguay’s National Ballet. This week, equally unexpectedly, he appeared at a gala to announce that he was back – with two new lieutenants: Sofía Sajac (interim director while he was away) as co-director and María Noel Bonino as ballet mistress. And it turns out, naturally, that there was some backstage discord involved. (in Spanish; Google Translate version here)
How ‘Valley Of The Dolls’ Turned Popping Pills Into A Feminist Act
“Re-reading the book today … elicits a more feminist interpretation: The ‘dolls’ seem less like destructive forces and more like symbols of the female protagonists’ search for self-determination, in whatever limited forms it could take in the late 60s.”
How Rupert Everett Used A Fat Suit And A Corset To Become Oscar Wilde
In an essay for the Times, Everett recounts how he came to be playing Wilde in David Hare’s The Judas Kiss – and what it was like to do the show the evening that the UK parliament passed marriage equality.
English National Opera To Perform Outside London For First Time In 30 Years
A ten-performance run of the popular Jonathan Miller staging of The Mikado in Blackpool this summer is part of a program that will also take the company to three other venues in London while its home, the Coliseum, is rented out for musicals.
The Bernie Sanders Of American Classical Music
“At 78, flinty and opinionated yet warm, … he has, for decades, been making thought-provoking, heart-wrenching music about issues that dominate the headlines today: the perils of incarceration, the tension between the government and the governed, the struggle for gay rights, the decimation of the industrial working class.”
Sorry, bell hooks And k.d. lang, This Copy Editor Will Capitalize Your Name Whether You Like It or Not
Abby McIntyre: “In standard print, capitalizing these proper names is not an act of violence nor of authoritarianism nor of betrayal. It is simply an attempt at clarity.”
Atlanta Ballet’s New Artistic Director Tells What He’ll Be Looking For In Auditions
Gennadi Nedvigin: “I will be looking for a strong base in classical dance and, at the same time, the ability to free themselves into performing different styles. Not every dancer has that. It needs to be developed.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.05.16
Propwatch: the mop in The Flick
No one selects a mop for its glamour. The mop that appears in the second half of The Flick is dowdier than most – a disconsolate tangle that once a day swabs the stickier … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2016-05-05
When plays became movies
Fifty years ago, A Man for All Seasons and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? hit big at the box office and tore up the Oscars. Yet both films were screen versions of dead-serious Broadway plays that came out in the same year as the undemanding likes of Fantastic Voyage and Our Man Flint. How could so challenging a pair of movies possibly have gone over with the popcorn set? … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-05-05
So you want to see a show?
Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-05-05
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