Comments for Washcult

Comment on Krapp’s Last Tape – John Hurt Creates Beckett’s World in D.C. by Steve

Steve — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 04:01:16 +0000

The immediacy of the Web is wonderful – as soon as I posted this on my other site, the Tumblr blog where I’m chronicling my uphill march or downhill slide from being 59 to being 60 (http://59-60.tumblr.com/post/13928389363/john-hurt-in-krapps-last-tape) I got an immediate “note,” the Tumblr equivalent of a “like,” from “Johnny Hurt” – the man himself. Not that I review things for the actors to approve, but I was tickled…

Comment on Two Gentlemen of Verona – Not! by Michael

Michael — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 02:29:56 +0000

By all accounts, Two Gentlemen is regarded as immature, an interesting start but not on par with Shakespeare’s later, funnier comedies and powerful tragedies. Proteus and Valentine are both callow, fatuous–and the sheer number of characters, changes of heart and focus make who said what to whom and the plot itself hard to remember.

I saw the Paparelli production on the same night as Steve, and like him, I found it entertaining–in the same way as one might enjoy a TV series like Private Practice. The actors powered through the dialogue and anachronisms with grace and clarity, just the right touch for a play of uncertain depth. The only faulty craft was in the singing (contemporary pop tunes are adapted in this production)–sorry to say that these actors don’t quite have the pipes.

But Steve’s pitch is perfect in his assessment–and that’s all I ask from a reviewer.

Comment on Waiting for Godot: Second Acts in an Uncertain World by sharon

sharon — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:27:08 +0000

I completely agree with your emphasis on Act II and the way it calls into question all that came before in Act I.
I would add that only in Act II does the thematic importance of the secondary characters become clear. The reappearance of these characters — a changed Pozzo, a child who is, or is not, the child from the day before (and the day before that?) removes any possibility of external validation of Vladimir’s daily experience. This surely is the definition of slowly going mad. Even the unseen characters — the brutes who beat Estragon every night — become critical in Act II. Day or night, Estragon can’t overcome, transcend, change his recurring experience.
Somehow, in my memory, I reduced Waiting for Godot to essentially a two-charater play, with Didi and Gogo carrying on like an old-timey vaudeville act (with tragic overtones, I grant). No more.
Speaking of vaudeville — you did describe a kind of song (Irwin)-and-dance (Lane) team. Spot on.

Comment on Waiting for Godot: Second Acts in an Uncertain World by Carolyn7334

Carolyn7334 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:51:20 +0000

This is lovely Steve. You’re so wonderfully cultured!

Comment on Waiting for Godot: Second Acts in an Uncertain World by Steve

Steve — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:17:41 +0000

posted for Stephen Menick:

Hey Steve, that was a very handsome piece on Godot. Do you know that I’ve never seen it performed? But I can’t imagine two better people in it than Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane. Bill Irwin was terrific in Rachel Getting Married. I still haven’t forgotten where I first saw him: in the movie Popeye (Altman directed, Robin Williams starred), in which he runs around the village trying but forever failing to pick up his hat because he can’t keep from kicking it away at the last split-second.

You address this issue of what sustains us during or after watching a play like Godot. I think this is the classic redemption issue. I maintain that all good art, or at least all satisfying art (and art should be satisfying) has to have an element of redemption. Which is not the same as a happy ending. And this is the same issue, I think, raised by Leo Rubinfein in my piece on Robert Frank. On a certain level, the redemption is in the art itself (in the depth and honesty of the vision). Which is also the point made at the very end of Lolita.