Category: theatre

The much-hyped $14 million Bombay Dreams finally opens on Broadway. Ben Brantley finds it colorful but familiar: “Such is the perverse spell cast by this friendly, flat and finally unengaging tale of glamorous movie folk and lovable untouchables that everything seems to melt into one neutral blur before your eyes, like a monochromatic symphony in the key of beige. Advertisements for the show may tout it as a voyage to “somewhere you’ve never been before.” But even theatergoers who have never seen a sari or eaten papadum are likely to find “Bombay Dreams” as familiar as this morning’s breakfast. It takes more than color, evidently, to be colorful.”

“Wicked,” the Broadway musical inspired by “The Wizard of Oz,” has swept the 49th annual Drama Desk Award nominations today with 11 nominations. Two shows about politics and betrayal, Steven Sondheim’s “Assassins” and the Lincoln Center Theater production of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV,” tied for second place with seven.

Beijing’s US$324.6 million National Grand Theatre of China has been under construction since 2001. “The futuristic design of the theatre, by French architect Paul Andreu, features a titanium and glass dome set in the centre of an artificial lake. Andreu’s concept beat 68 other candidates in an international bidding process, but sparked criticism because it doesn’t complement the solemn atmosphere of Tian’anmen Square. But as the dewdrop-like design emerges ever more clearly with each passing day, old concerns about the look have been replaced by new worries about the theatre’s operation.” The theatres was to open in July, but the most optimistic opening is now predicted for late 2005.

Nova Scotia’s Atlantic Theatre Festival has canceled its 2004 season. “Not enough money put our organization into a tailspin of not being sure where we stood. We didn’t have funds to pay staff, to pay the artistic community, and putting it all together — morally and from a fiscally responsible point of view — we could not proceed.”

The Scottish government has changed its mind and decided to refund the country’s theatres. “Only months ago the groups were told their core grants from the SAC would end in 2005 and they would have to re-apply for money from a greatly reduced pot. The change now means the companies will effectively be guaranteed funding from 2005 to 2006. There are no guarantees beyond then.”

Kevin Spacey is a big-time Hollywood actor. So why is he running the Old Vic? “After spending an hour and a half in Spacey’s company, I emerged from the Old Vic convinced that he is a man who means business, is in it for the long haul, and could be just the chap to restore the theatre to its former glories. It’s the first time so high-profile an actor has doubled as a theatre’s director since Olivier ran the National Theatre company at the same address in the ’60s and early ’70s.”

“After years (some might say decades) of Broadway surrendering any cultural identity of its own to the British, the New York theatre these days couldn’t be more American.”

“Ronnie Burkett is the first to see the potential absurdity in ‘a grown man who spends his nights jiggling jointed dolls’. Recognising not just the theatre’s but most of the western world’s antipathy for puppets, he even admits: ‘It’s ridiculous – I wouldn’t pay to see it.’ None the less, his Memory Dress Trilogy has won him a reputation as one of the great theatre artists of the world.”

The $14 million Bombay Dreams is about to hit Broadway, and producers have been out wooing the Asian community. “Bombay Dreams, after all, is essentially a staged version of a Bollywood film, the immensely popular kind of musical melodramas, produced in Mumbai (as Bombay is now called), that draws huge audiences from all across the Indian subcontinent. And the best estimates say that there are more than 500,000 South Asians living in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.”

“Personal acting coaches are common in Hollywood, where rehearsal time is scarce and money is not. But on Broadway, though stars of musical theater often work with voice coaches, very few experienced theater actors hire an expert to help them prepare for a play. As more film and television stars moonlight in the theater, however, coaches are increasingly in demand.”