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27 mar '00
23 mar '00
11 mar '00
8 mar '00

27 mar '00

Turandot, Virginia Opera, Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia

Act I: A nifty two-story set; interesting Darth Maul makeup for the executioner; a stunning bloodthirsty chorus including a bit from the kiddies; distracting business with the skulls on pikes.

Act II: Pamela Kucenic (Turandot) shows a powerful voice in the riddles scene;she's standing on a lift that sinks each time Calaf answers a riddle (hmm); more silly business with the skulls.

Act III: Yes, "Nessun dorma" is worth the wait; a good death scene for Bruce Baumer (Timur).

So I Am Glad, a novel by A. L. Kennedy

Another work from Scotland's poet of pain. In this book, Kennedy's narrator Jennifer, a practicing sadist, tells a story that is simultaneously witty, seductive, magical, and horrifying. Jennifer doesn't break the fourth wall, she smashes through it, implicating the reader in her acts. As an introduction to a description of her lovemaking style, Jennifer writes, "Want to see it? Close your eyes now if you don't."

Jennifer is a professional radio presenter and voiceover artist, and Kennedy soars when Jennifer describes her work:

While we recorded, each word would emerge with nothing but itself, a courageous little assembly of sibilants, fricatives, plosives -- lips and teeth and tips of tongues.

Timothy McSweeney's Windfall Republic (McSweeney's No. 3)

The design of this irregularly-produced literary journal suggests a farmer's almanac laid out by a millenialist folk artist, and editor Dave Eggers' s loony front and back matter is something to read. But the publication's fiction entries are uninteresting; only some of the non-fiction, like Paul Collins's "Banvard's Folly," a report on a 19th-century panoramic landscape painter, breaks the literary horizon.

Riding the Bullet, a novella by Stephen King

King's online-published novella has raised the visibility profile of electronically-delivered fiction. Unfortunately, it has done nothing to raise its standards of quality. King's narrator Alan, a college student hitchhiking home to visit his critically-ill mother, tells an unscary ghost story in vocabulary that will not tax the capacities of the average tabloid reader.

Alan wrongly characterizes his mother's trite aphorisms like "Fun is fun and done is done" as Zen-like. A typical bland simile from Alan is "people like us, little people who went scurrying though the world like mice in a cartoon..." An interesting tidbit about Maine place names is marred by a copy-editing error. What should be a tension-filled moment, when a ghoul demands that Alan choose between his own life and his mother's, is described by Alan in this flabby prose:

"I'm taking one of you with me, man... What do you say?"

You can't be serious rose to my lips, but what would be the point of saying that, or anything like it? Or course he was serious. Dead serious.

23 mar '00

Tangokinesis, Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington

The company's style is rooted in the traditional tango, with a good dollop of modern. The evening provided some acrobatic moments of high-speed leverage, but I just didn't see enough vocabulary for a full concert. The company of eight uses fixed partnering: Pedro Calveyra, of the lead pair, succeeds at being avuncular and sexy at the same time. I liked the musical accompaniment, which often used contemporary composers and found sounds, although sometimes I thought I was listening to a Spike Jones outtake from the 1940s. Interestingly, "Escualo" from "Four Piazzollas" (1995) uses the same score that Paul Taylor has set "Piazzolla Caldera" to. The other pieces on the program were the eponymous "Tangokinesis" (1993) and "Concierto para Bongo" (1995).

Ballet de l'Opéra de Bordeaux, Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia

A generous evening of repertory from Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, beset by numerous curtain announcements of recastings. In "Chopiniana," ("Les Sylphides") no one in the corps seemed to be having a good time -- maybe it's a Russian performance style thing. Next came solid performances of "L'aprés-midi d'un faune" and "Le spectre de la rose."

The capper for the evening was a thrilling, spectacular "Petrouchka." The act curtain, picturing airborne ghouls, and the set for the street scene, portraying a snow-washed St. Petersburg, are wonderful. Unfortunately, set changes between scenes were painfully slow, and the taped accompaniment made the changes feel even more awkward. The puppet Moor's part is offensive, that much is clear -- at one point he cavorts like a clockwork cymbal-playing monkey -- and perhaps that's why this great piece has fallen out of repertory. But the story of the man-puppet little Peter who breaks his strings, is universal in scope, and it deserves to be danced more. Principals were Isabella Boutot (the Ballerina), Salvatore Gagliardi (Petrouchka), and Yeruult Rinchindorj (the Moor).

(And a shout-out to my friend Victor Yager, one of the supers!)

American Ballet Theatre, Opera House, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington

Alas, the evening was not without minor mishaps. Yan Chen danced a particularly spritely variation in of "La Bayadère" (Act II). In "Jardin aux Lilas," Anthony Tudor's long-skirted piece from 1936, there are brief, supple, genuinely-felt solos for Julie Kent and Sandra Brown, but the acting and gesture called for by the piece are so unsubtle as to be unintentionally farcical.

Which brings us to the World Premiere of Twyla Tharp's "Variations on a Theme by Haydn," set to Brahms's Op. 56a. It's a piece of spontaneity and raw creativity. There's a lot going on in both the fore- and background: hurtling carries, lots of lifts for the corps, passages of calculated awkwardness from the soloists. Dressed in leotards in shades of ocher, olive, and mint green, it's as if the dancers are hunks of clay in Tharp's hands, and she's wiggling her fingers.

Life is short and the movies are many:

• Sweet and Lowdown manages to be much less interesting than it ought to be, despite Sean Penn's good performance. It ends even more abruptly than is usual with an Allen flick these days.
• Such a Long Journey is interesting as a portrait of the Parsi community in Bombay, but the movie bogs down trying to decide what sort of a movie it is: a tale of family under stress, a political thriller, a bittersweet comedy.
• Topsy-Turvy is very enjoyable, especially in the sections where it resembles a late-Victorian era Waiting for Guffman. Let us all be thankful that director Mike Leigh chose to take a light, not solemn approach, to the lives and work of Arthur Sullivan and W. S. Gilbert. The flashforwards and -backs to the first-night performance of The Mikado maintain excitement. I liked the brief excursions into contemporary technology: "reservoir" pens, and fumbling conversations on the new telephone that remind one of one's first AIM chat ("I'm hanging up now.") Especially fine in the cast are Wendy Nottingham as the no-nonsense Helen Lenoir and Lesley Manville as Lucy, Gilbert's wife. She is by turns ditzy, wise, suffering, and radiant. The last scene between Gilbert and Lucy is so touching, it's the moment this picture becomes a Mike Leigh film, where Leigh shows us that a relationship is often about what is not spoken.
• The subtitles' translation of the name of Sólveig Anspach's Haut les coeurs! is "Battle Cries," and it's a better title than the one selected for its American release, Chin Up! The opening credits roll intercut with images from a sonogram of Emma's second-trimester fetus. Shortly thereafter, Emma (Karin Viard) is diagnosed with breast cancer, and the movie tells the story of her struggle to both bear her baby and survive her own illness. Anspach's camera doesn't flinch: the tight closeups are clinical in their gaze. Even as the picture nears its end, gritty Emma is still fighting, now undergoing bone-marrow transplant therapy in an infernally cold blue isolation unit. (But Emma has found an almost unrealistically sympathetic oncologist in Dr. Morin to fight alongside her.) Sound textures are handled very effectively in this movie, from the noise of a disco to the rumbling stillness of the hospital. Also remarkable in this estrogen-driven film is the subtlety of emotions scripted for Emma's partner Simon, who ranges from crashing rage, to humor at Emma's freeze helmet (meant to retard chemotherapy-induced hair loss), to nurturing of baby Juliette.

11 mar '00

To catch up on my movie notes:

• Beautiful People weaves together several stories set in London at the height of the recent war in Bosnia. At times the moviemaking is enjoyably kinetic, and there are some quiet passages that are quite good. But too often the film takes a heavy-handed "why can't we all just get along?" approach; the plot turns on too many improbable points, and the acting is marred by second-rate performances. Nevertheless, the accidental air-dropping of drugged-out football hooligan Griffin into Srebenica is a brilliant plot point. Roger Sloman glowers well as Griffin's long-suffering father, and Charlotte Coleman simply glows as Portia.
• Peter Mullan makes his feature-length directing debut in Orphans, a tasty little Glaswegian black comedy. The four adult children of the title spend a vigil for their mother in a cityscape that becomes tinged with the surreal. A storm blows the roof off the church, while Sheila (a palsy victim) wanders the streets and is picked up like a stray animal by a precocious little girl. Meanwhile another character struggles all night to make a pub knifing look like an on-the-job accident, for which compensation is due. In a world that mixes equal parts of James Kelman, Quentin Tarantino, and Christopher Durang, the four orphans remind us that we are all cold, wet, frightened, alone, broken, stubborn, mean-spirited, and in need of sanctuary. In the end, they do what every modern Celtic hero does: they go on.
• There are definitely parts of Boys Don't Cry that are hard to watch. But the flat-out fearless acting performances from every member of the cast are not be missed. And maybe it's worth learning that the most entertaining things to do in Lincoln, Nebraska are bumper surfing and sniffing propellant from cans of whipped cream.
• The performances in Wonder Boys are good, and genuine, too, but the story-telling feels the need to spell things out for us with voiceovers. Characters tell things to us about other characters, when all we need to do is pay attention to what is shown. Only the erratic Pittsburgh weather -- it snows, it rains, it snows, all in the course of a weekend -- is not explained.
• And a repertory screening of Errol Morris's The Thin Blue Line (1988) returns us to low-lifes in the Great Plains. This documentary recounts the story of the drifter Randall Adams, framed and convicted for the murder of a Dallas police officer. Morris has a sly way of reminding you of his presence as the documentarian; in this film, his voice appears for the first time in the very last segment, a tape-recorded interview with the likely killer, cold-blooded David Harris. It's astonishing how Morris can order complex reconstructed events without resort to voiceover narration, but rather by using visuals only, particularly snatches of newspaper clippings.

A quick note on the 20th Century Consort concert of February 26, "Tempus Fugit:" Lisa Emenheiser Logan' s technical skill at the piano is simply amazing.

Cowboy Junkies, Nightclub 9:30, Washington, February 24

A warm comfy robe of a concert, certainly the most sedate that I've ever seen a sold-out 9:30 crowd to be. The Junkies played some "small" arrangements for just Margo Timmins's voice and Michael Timmins's guitar, including "Bea's Song" and "Hollow as a Bone." And they rocked out with several pieces, like the new "Bread and Wine," an opportunity for Margo to use her powerful lower register. She did her best to boogie down while wearing a cast from a 10-week-old broken ankle (from walking the dog, no less). Dang but she has a beautiful voice. "200 More Miles" appeared from the early repertory, but not "Sweet Jane," despite the house's exhortations. The Junkies closed the show with one of my favorites, the earthy, ethereal "Blue Guitar."

8 mar '00

What I've read on the bus:

Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia, by Karl E. Meyer and Shaneen Blair Brysac

The book's theme is the lives of certain of the British, Russian, and American 19th and 20th-century explorers to visit central Asia: the Punjab, Afghanistan, Tibet, and Turkestan (now the former Soviet republics). By the by, it highlights historical events in the region; perhaps the most shocking of these is the British invasion of Tibet at the turn of the 20th century.

This is a large, dense book. Meyer and Brysac take pains to catalog an expedition's stock of supplies, for instance. The index focuses on people, not places or events, so it's difficult to regain the thread of a story, despite a chronology in the book's front matter.

Nevertheless, the characters we meet on the way are interesting company. First among them is Nikolai Przhevalsky, for whom a species of horse is named. He turns out to be a raging bigot, contemptuous of the residents of the lands he explored. And the tale of Sven Hedin's crossing of the Taklamakan Desert is not to be missed. (In Turkic, the place's name means, "Go in and you won't come out.")

The KGB Bar Reader, edited by Ken Foster

This collection grew from a reading series at New York's KGB Bar. Revealing their roots in live performance, most of the selections are in the first person -- Michael Cunningham's "Mister Brother" being a notable second-person exception -- and they often feel unfinished and extemporaneous. Thus, many of the stories are not very good. Kathryn Harrison's "Tick" is downright clumsy. On the upside, editor Foster's "Indelible" is not bad. The narrator of Joanna Greenfield's imaginative "Hyena" relates a harrowing story of being mauled by a hyena, and this story is framed by a matter-of-fact, almost trite travelogue, the irony of which emerges gradually.

Fire & Flower, poems by Laura Kasischke

An enjoyable slim volume from the author of last year's White Bird in a Blizzard. "Confections" is a delicious candy box of metaphors. In the unpredictable "Galaxy," a young girl endures an emotion-filled hazing by fifth-graders, who come to resemble Sleeping Beauty's wicked godmother.

Self-Help, stories by Lorrie Moore

Moore's more recent collection is Birds of America. Most of the stories here use a daring, surprisingly effective device: they are told in the second-person imperative. The best-developed is the Beckett-inflected "How," which tells of a brief love affair. It begins:

Begin by meeting him in a class, in a bar, at a rummage sale. Maybe he teaches sixth grade. Manages a hardware store. Foreman at a carton factory. He will be a good dancer. He will have perfectly cut hair. He will laugh at your jokes.

"To Fill," with its punning title, is perhaps the high-water mark for Moore's allusive, word-playing narrator alter ego. Low-water mark?

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