Category: theatre

A devastating indictment of race relations in the Upper Midwest is currently playing at a theater in the Twin Cities. “The Last Minstrel Show,” which details (and satirizes in explicit form) the lynching of three black men in Duluth, is hard to watch and even harder to analyze, and apparently, Minnesotans don’t want to hear it. The show is closing after only two weeks, due to abysmal ticket sales in a city that normally embraces theater of all types. “If virtually no one attends a play about an event virtually no one wants to talk about, then, as the show’s final production number asserts with nonchalant gaiety, ‘Nothing happened.’ Right? Isn’t that where we’re at societywise on the whole race issue?”

It’s an amazing thing, Vicky Featherstone being named to head the new Scottish National Theatre. “The names being touted for the job were all Scotsmen. For an Englishwoman placed at the helm of a body which it is hoped can inspire a Scottish theatre revival, Featherstone has faced remarkably little grumbling from the old guard, not much beyond the odd letter to a newspaper.”

A play at the Edinburgh Fringe has the gay community upset. It portrays “hidden violence and cruelty inside gay relationships. ” But the playwright defends the work: “The message we usually give out is that we are a happy community, and some think that if we do anything to alter that picture we will alienate ourselves further from the rest of society. I think the time is right to make it clear we are exactly the same as heterosexuals when it comes to these problems.”

“Cirque Du Soleil is perhaps the best international ambassador in Canada’s history. This entertainment giant has thrilled more than 40 million spectators since it began two decades ago, growing out of a small festival in the Quebec town of Baie-Saint-Paul. Cirque brought a new kind of circus into existence, made up of dazzling acrobatics and gymnastics, rather than animal acts and tawdry sideshow displays.”

“Eighteen years after [Denver’s] Bonfils Theater was shuttered, it no longer matters who was the bad guy responsible for the decay of the once-great venue. The important question is whether anyone will take responsibility for the building’s reclamation before it’s too late… In the past two decades, many plans have been put forward to save the theater. Most were done in not by the modest purchase price but the daunting task of rehabilitating a theater that has grown decrepit from lack of use and maintenance.”

Steven Barkhimer is one of Boston’s busiest actors, a man beloved by critics and audiences alike. And yet, he hasn’t been able to pay his own rent in more than a year, and barely manages to scrape by financially. He’s not an anomaly, he’s the poster boy for the life of the Boston actor. And that’s a big problem for the city’s theater scene.

Broadway’s obsession with big-name pop culture stars and washed-up blips on the cultural radar is getting out of hand. “Just a quick gaze at today’s theater listings can give a person the distinct sensation of watching a particularly poignant episode of ‘I Love the 90’s.'” Worse, previous experience and actual talent or ability seem to have next to nothing to do with these casting decisions.

“London’s theatrical business is enduring a summer of ennui. But is it a seasonal slump, or a sign of long-term decline? In the last couple of months, a slew of West End shows has closed early, many within weeks — or even days — of opening.”

In watching this week’s Democratic National Convention, Anna Deveare Smith is struck by the theatricality of the political show. “Four years ago, I would have pooh-poohed the notion of politics as theatrical. If theater is anything, it is life made urgent. We don’t waste words, gestures or time on stage. But politicians can learn from us and we can learn technique from them. In this election year, none of us can waste a moment. The theater could afford to be more political and politics needs to be a lot more theatrical.”

Vicky Featherstone has been named the first director of the Scottish National Theatre. “The appointment of an Englishwoman will raise some eyebrows, but it was welcomed by many in the arts community as a sign that the new theatre would be as ground-breaking as they had hoped. The 37-year-old beat other more established names with stronger Scottish links, including Kenny Ireland, who ran the Royal Lyceum theatre in Edinburgh for more than 10 years.”