There’s never been any shortage of film adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. But the Bard’s work shows up most often in Hollywood as a twisted shadow of its original self, “an eclectic branch of ‘what if … ?’ cinema… Their production has always been underpinned by a commercial imperative, because most original-text Shakespeare has struggled at the box office.”
Author: sbergman
Labour Accused Of Turning A Blind Eye To The Arts
The outgoing director of the UK’s National Gallery slammed the Labour government this weekend, accusing Treasury chief Gordon Brown of having no interest in preserving the country’s cultural heritage. “The criticism came as Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the Master of the Queen’s Music, also prepares to launch a stinging attack this week on ‘this utterly philistine government’ with a Prime Minister whose ‘horizons are rock and pop’.”
Britain’s Blobby New Starchitect
“You may know his ‘wonky-legged’ Peckham Library or other striking constructions using strong colours and ‘blobby shapes’. But the name of the man who built them? Will Alsop is fast joining Foster and Rogers as one of the UK’s top architects.”
2007 Forecast Has Hollywood Licking Its Chops
“The bulls are running in Hollywood. The new year is only three months old, but already executives are beginning to snort and paw the ground in the belief that 2007 will be not only a record year at the North American box office, but may even achieve an astonishing milestone: $10-billion (U.S.) in ticket sales.”
Animal Lovers Take On Vancouver Art Show
An art installation at a Vancouver gallery is drawing fire from animal rights activists, who claim that renowned Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping is mistreating the live animals used in the exhibit. The piece in question consists of “an array of creepy crawlies massed together under a turtle-shaped enclosure,” which the local Humane Society says is “deliberately designed to spur aggression among the animals.”
Should Humor Have To Be Factually Accurate?
A couple of months back, New Republic staffer Alex Heard took on the comedic colossus that is David Sedaris, charging that the author, whose books are frequently listed as nonfiction, grossly exaggerates and even occasionally fabricates the events around which his wry essays are based. Ever since the article appeared, critics, readers, and authors alike have been debating not only whether the charges are true, but whether such lofty standards amount to nitpicking when applied to a humorist whose work is far removed from fact-based scholarship.
The Age Of Perpetual Gloom Is Upon Us
This year’s Humana Festival featured a seemingly endless parade of doom and gloom, says John Moore. “Two of the six plays address the apocalypse. Is there hope? A bit. The world ends only once… That playwrights are fearful is not new; they’ve been laden with it since 9/11. What makes this flawed but compelling 2007 collection different is that we seem to have settled into an acceptance that foreboding is now a lurking everyday reality.”
End Of An Era On Hubbard Street
Chicago’s Hubbard Street Dance company is losing its longtime executive director, Gail Kalver. “The troupe ended its fiscal year in August with a $130,000 surplus, no small feat in an era of not-for-profit deficits,” and the organization is confident that Kalver has taken care to ensure a smooth transition.
Hubbard Street’s Accidental Archivists
“Hubbard Street Dance Chicago ensemble members Cheryl Mann and Tobin Del Cuore are well-known on-stage partners. But they’ve also carried their playful chemistry into unusual backstage roles as the modern troupe’s archivists. What may sound like a stuffy job becomes creative magic in their unconventional hands.”
The Show’s Rated G, But The Ads Are NC-17
Hollywood is used to hearing regular complaints about the violent content of some movies and TV shows, and the usual response to concerned parents is to point out that no one’s forcing them to consume the objectionable product. But what about those increasingly brutal and violent ads that networks insist on showing during otherwise family-friendly fare?