“The way of the Samurai is a natural way of the Universe, Ma, and to learn it, one must live one’s life from first to last in self-control. I know all about that stuff now.”
– Wynne in Adam Rapp’s “Stone Cold Dead Serious”

Just how far are American playwrights from dramatizing a culture buffeted and manhandled by uncertainty, assaulted by fears of economic catastrophe and successful terrorism attacks? In other words, just how shallow is our theater’s response to changing times? The Gurnet Theatre Project’s energetic Boston premiere (closed) of Adam Rapp’s allegedly dark comedy “Essential Self-Defense” suggests the distance between contemporary reality and theatrical fantasy can be measured in light years.

“Essential Self-Defense”: Love at First Kick in the Head
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Luckily the Boston area is home to a considerable number of world-class pianists. Among them is Victor Rosenbaum. An honors graduate of Brandeis University, he was chair of the piano faculty at the New England Conservatory before heading the Longy School of Music for 16 years. He currently is on the Conservatory faculty as well as that of the Mannes School of Music in New York, and gives performances and master classes around the globe.

Victor Rosenbaum displays superb pianism in his latest CD (more…)

The American Theatre Critics Association, which moves around the country for its annual convention, this year spent a recent week in the nation’s capital and environs. The area houses 75 theatres – 43 in the District of Columbia, 17 in nearby Maryland, and 15 in the contiguous portion of Virginia. From the many current offerings, the attendees, thanks to two large buses, were able to sample ten presentations.

A photo of Kimberly Gilbert, a performer in “Measure for Pleasure,” one of the raunchier DC shows on display for the ATCA voyagers. (more…)

Though it does not originate in the Kuiper Belt, the Beijing summer Olympics (8/8/08-8/24/08) is bearing down upon us like an outsized asteroid, bringing China out of feudal/communist distance into full twenty-first century relief. Sports, at this point, remain secondary:before we get to ping-pong, swimming, the shot-put and gymnastics, Americans have unprecedented amounts of trend-setting Chinese art and culture to ponder.

Time to take out your Xiangqui board! (more…)

Hu Jia, a freelance writer, civil rights, environmental and AIDS activist, was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power.”

Last week the PEN American Center announced it was sending out letters to the Bush Administration and Congressional leaders protesting, fifty days before the start of the Olympics, the curtailment of human rights in China. I figured this meant that a petition PEN hand-delivered - via much hoopla in early May - to the Chinese Mission at the United Nations asking for the release of dozens of imprisoned Chinese writers came up short.

The news is worse – not only has China’s media clampdown become more draconian over the past few months, but the government’s indifference to finger-pointing letters and petitions such as PEN’s suggests that human rights advocacy wields embarrassingly little influence. Unless you believe that conditions for writers in the People’s Republic of China would have been harsher without these efforts in the international community. The catch, suggested in an excellent recent piece in the New Republic, is that it could also be claimed that China’s authorities reinforce their hold on power by thumbing their noses at demands that they increase freedom of expression.
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The local choral group called the Boston Secession has recently issued its second CD recording, entitled “Surprised by Beauty: Minimalism in Choral Music.” Founded in 1996 by conductor/pianist Jane Ring Frank, who had moved east from California in 1991, this professional chorus consists of two dozen singers – six sopranos, six altos, five tenors, and seven basses. The group’s name was modeled on that of the Vienna Secession, a progressive cooperative formed in 1897 by the painter Gustav Klimt and several Austrian colleagues.

The new Boston Secession CD manifests plenty of beauty
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In 1942, in fulfillment of an essay competition announced in 1936, the Teyler’s Second Society in Haarlem published the winning study on the spread of Dutch painting throughout the world: Horst Gerson, “Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts” (The diffusion and after-effect of Dutch 17th-century painting). Written in German-occupied Holland by a German immigrant of Jewish extraction, the “Ausbreitung” documents the Dutch artistic conquest of large parts of the world. The longest single section in the book are the 153 pages on “Das Deutsche Reich.”

Willem Schellinks, Baptism in Nantes, 1646 Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig Museum
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“The best of the regular theater critics … the brightest America ever had.”
– Eric Bentley

“The truth is that Mr. Nathan is both a theatrical storehouse, full of the most voluminous and astonishing information, and a whole theatre in himself. He maintains an impetus and lustre that time can not stale.”
– Stark Young

I am over a month late, but attention must be paid. George Jean Nathan, the greatest American theater critic of the 20th century, died fifty years ago on April 8. He was 76. So far no homages have marked the occasion, Nathan’s thirty-four books on the theater are out of print, and Thomas Connolly’s fine “George Jean Nathan and the Making of Modern American Drama Criticism” remains the only substantial volume dedicated to seriously examining his legacy. (more…)

The Cambridge Community Chorus (CCC) was founded in 1990, and has in the past 18 years grown in size and skill under the leadership of William Ethaniel Thomas. Thomas is retiring from his post and led his farewell concert in Sanders Theatre on May 25 before an enthusiastic audience. For his final program Thomas chose two large works: one by Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), and one by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912).

William Ethaniel Thomas (more…)

“It’s remarkable because the nominators tend to skew much older,” said Rocco Landesman, president of Jujamcyn Theaters, none of whose tenants were nominated for best musical. “I guess they want to be young and hip. This is more surprising than usual.” – The Year’s Tony List is Filled with Unusual Suspects, New York Times, 5/14/08

Producer Rocco Landesman should head up to Boston. Here the mainstream theater types, particularly our critics, aren’t trying to be “with it.” Here, even though our theaters are surrounded with more students per square mile than in any other city in America, the geriatric reigns. Particularly when it comes to the shows that garner awards.

What do the young turks of YouTube make of award-winning shows like “Man of La Mancha?” It is not impossible to guess.
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