Carina del Valle Schorske: “If this musical is still our narrative ghetto, then the least we can do is make noise about what it feels like to live in it. In 2020, it feels exhausting.” – The New York Times
Tag: 02.24.20
Silent-Film Superstar ‘Baby Peggy’, Diana Serra Cary, Dead At 101
“Born Peggy-Jean Montgomery, she became one of the country’s youngest self-made millionaires by age 4, then suffered a devastating reversal of fortune and fame in her adolescence. In adulthood, she rebounded with a new name, Diana Serra Cary, and became a respected author of books on Hollywood film history. In her autumnal years, at screenings of her few extant films, she found herself embraced as a movie pioneer.” – The Washington Post
David Mamet Tries Out A Play As Quietly As Possible In L.A. The L.A. Times’s Critic Found Out About It Anyway
Charles McNulty: “I’m going to respect the tacit wishes of Mamet and not review the play as I would if it had had an official press opening. A work that’s still being tinkered with before it’s shipped to New York deserves the chance to evolve in peace even if it’s charging $50 a ticket to L.A. theatergoers. But the experience reminded me of what I admire about Mamet’s talent — the vigor and cunning of voices in all-out attack — and what I have found so off-putting since Oleanna — the stacking of the deck in ideological blood battles.” – Los Angeles Times
The Real Problem With That Open Letter Supporting The Fired Lyon Ballet Director Wasn’t Who Did Or Didn’t Agree To Sign It
“Unthinkingly defending one’s powerful friends has real-life consequences. What [illegally fired dancer Karline] Marion, and other dancers who may find themselves in a similar situation, will take away from this letter is that there is no winning against a well-connected director. Even if you gather the necessary evidence, play by the rules, and wait, the people you most admire may still call you crazy and obfuscate.” – Dance Magazine
Italian Arts Venues Close And Venice Carnival Is Cancelled As Measures To Contain Coronavirus
Across northern Italy from Venice to Milan, theatres, cinemas, museums, and opera houses (including La Scala) have been ordered to stop operations for a week as cases of the disease spread. – Hyperallergic
Met Opera Orchestra To Tour For First Time In 18 Years
In late June and early July, music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin will lead the orchestra in concerts at the Barbican in London, the Philharmonie de Paris, and the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden in Germany. The singers joining them will be Joyce DiDonato, Christine Goerke, Brandon Jovanovich, and Günther Groissböck. – Playbill
Are You Sure The Person You’re Arguing With Online Is Real?
The sheer profusion of actors online has foreclosed their need to be real at all: the armies of bots and the Russian sockpuppets, the corporate tweeps and the AI deepfakes. One can just as easily get into a heated dispute with a bot account generating random replies, or with an automated customer-service agent matching inputs to outputs, as with a human foe who is frantically tapping words into a glass rectangle. – The Atlantic
Adèle Haenel Says France Has ‘Missed The Boat’ So Far On The MeToo Movement
Once Haenel publicly accused film director Christophe Ruggia of harassment and “inappropriate sexual contact” that began when she was 12, women in France began speaking out in large numbers. “My story was like the last gram in a chemistry experiment that made everything fall out of solution,” she said. She’s clear about the problem: “Many artists blurred, or wanted to blur, the distinction between sexual behavior and abuse. The debate was centered on the question of [men’s] ‘freedom to bother,’ and on feminists’ purported puritanism. But sexual abuse is abuse, not libertine behavior.” – The New York Times
Turns Out That People Who Are Likely To Pay For Streaming Services Are Also Likely To Pirate Shows
At least, that’s true in Australia, according to the results of a recent survey. The more services you subscribed to, the more likely you were to pirate. That’s a little weird, right? Well … “Electronic Frontiers Australia board member Justin Warren said people who were paying for multiple subscriptions were likely turning to piracy out of frustration at not being able to find what they wanted on the services they were paying for.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Man Who Sees A History Bigger Than All Of Us
Yuval Noah Harari did not invent Big History, but he updated it with hints of self-help and futurology, as well as a high-altitude, almost nihilistic composure about human suffering. He attached the time frame of aeons to the time frame of punditry—of now, and soon. His narrative of flux, of revolution after revolution, ended urgently, and perhaps conveniently, with a cliffhanger. “Sapiens,” while acknowledging that “history teaches us that what seems to be just around the corner may never materialise,” suggests that our species is on the verge of a radical redesign. – The New Yorker