“With the aid of copies created by the painter’s two sons and the use of infrared reflectography, it was possible to eliminate the areas of repainting and reintegrate lost details. The removal of varnish applied during previous interventions has restored the original colours, recovering the characteristic bright tones of the blues and reds and the depth of the landscape.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
National Theatre In London Is Really **Royal** National Theatre, But They’d Rather You Forget About That
Why? Because “Royal” might make them seem elitist. Said (R)NT artistic director Rufus Norris, “This country is still very class divided and anything that adds to that perception, that this place is not open to everybody, could be a downfall. I fear that for some people that [the ‘Royal’ prefix] adds to that perception.”
Kuwait Is On A Book-Banning Binge (They’ve Even Banned ‘The Little Mermaid’)
“In August, the government acknowledged that it had banned 4,390 books since 2014, hundreds of them this year, including many works of literature that had once been considered untouchable, setting off street demonstrations and online protests.” Among the Western titles on the censors’ list are One Hundred Years of Solitude, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and 1984 (in one Arabic translation but not another). As for poor little mermaid Ariel? As one activist says, “There are no hijab-wearing mermaids. The powers that be thought her dress was promiscuous. It’s humiliating.”
Suzan-Lori Parks Wins $200,000 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award
The “Mimi” Award “is presented biennially to an American playwright whose body of work has made significant contributions to the American theatre.” Parks, who won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Topdog/Underdog, joins a list of laureates that includes Tony Kushner, Lynn Nottage, David Henry Hwang, Stephen Adly Guirgis, and Sarah Ruhl.
How To Make (And Not To Make) Choreography Funny
“Humor is subjective, and it can be tough to get right. Though there are many moments of brilliant comedy in dance, there are also so many failed attempts that, well, it’s not even funny. There’s no exact formula for grabbing a laugh. But experimenting with these ingredients can help you tap into your funny.”
Termination or Continuation? Parsing the Uncertain Status of Federal Arts & Humanities Appropriations
While Congress and President Trump continue to kick the budgetary can down the road, federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities remains temporarily intact, with its future in doubt.
The Belated Emergence of Billy Strayhorn
He was one of the great hidden figures in musical history, and he seems to be a bit less invisible every year.
Soon-to-be Met composer Missy Mazzoli merges her selves in ‘Proving Up’
My guess is that Mazzoli’s Met commission was made on the strength of her formidable previous opera, Breaking the Waves. And this new one? It was not more of the same. It’s different. Really different.
How The Scots Language (Aye, It’s A Language) Has Survived Against Enormous Odds
While many people (including more than a few Scottish ones) see the tongue of Robert Burns and Trainspotting as just a thickly accented dialect of English, Scots actually developed independently. (There was no medieval influence from Norman French, for one thing, since William the Conqueror never crossed the border.) But with Scotland having been united with the much larger, richer, more culturally assertive England for several centuries now, Scots came close to being subsumed into English entirely. Yet it has survived, and now it’s even gaining speakers.
Defacing ‘Art’ – How Yasmina Reza’s Play Changes With Times And Places
The play has racked up productions in 30 languages and 45 countries in its 24-year history. “What’s so interesting is that, like certain plays by Pinter, perhaps, the play adapts itself to its actors, so it doesn’t seem to matter if you cast it with men in their 60s or their 30s,” says Christopher Hampton, who translated Reza’s French-language script into English.” (While the play’s three characters were originally written as male, “Art” has been performed by women as well.) Elisabeth Vincentelli talks with artists who’ve worked on or in the play about how the piece and the times adapt to each other.