notanotherbookreview

 THE BOX BY PATRICK HAMILTON. TOP HONORS--BEST PLAY, BEST DIRECTOR AT NEW YORK CITY THEATER FESTIVAL-  THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY'S DREAM UP FESTIVAL PRODUCTION - Produced by Terry Nguyn and Patrick Hamilton, Executive Produced by Chelsea J. Smith and Darrell Shipley What is gripping about this play? There's the fast direct open-ended plot with unexpected turns in the story. There's dynamic, yet subtle well-nuanced performances. The minimal set has maximum impact. Each piece's purpose is highlighted by the lighting and acting. I also like the TNC relaxed, funky atmosphere. This place has a heritage of putting on plays that matter.  The subject of this play could not be timelier. In the production at TNC, I saw how the history and mindsets of these characters seem to mirror the bitter divisions in the U.S., where opposing visions are  vying for power.  It also amplifies the emotional gulf between men and women, trying to make their own more perfect unions. ...

  THE BRONZE BOY by Nancy Hamada, directed by Todd Faulkner. Cast included August Kiss Fegley, Nicole Greevy and Todd Faulkner. The production was showcased in "East of Edinburgh" at 59 E.59th Street, one of 6 plays selected for Edinburgh's Fringe Festival. The 59th Street venue offered an opportunity to stage shows prior to the festival. It's an unusual opportunity in the United States. Unlike Britain, there is no National Theater to provide festival opportunities for new plays, let alone venues to showcase them.  THE BRONZE BOY is a surprisingly funny, nuanced and serious play about America's love-hate relationship with guns, explored in a road trip. This meandering journey on our highways is a visit to our hidden gun culture. We see headlines in America, telegraphed shots of life and death madness, but rarely stories of our subterranean inheritance. Our relationship to guns is largely ignored in news culture, which emphasizes senselessness over the hidden ...

                                                                  IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE won the Noble Prize for Sinclair Lewis in 1930s for his postwar dystopia, where the fascist threat isn't external but home-grown.   The book is free at libraries or guttenberg.com.  Local bookstores probably have on "classics" shelves.  Amazon may be cheap and convenient, though never free. (Below is adapted from Wikipedia): Plot : In It Can't Happen Here   by American author Sinclair Lewis  an American politician, Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, quickly rises to power to become the country's first outright dictator.  Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, early on sees Windrip's fascist  policies for what they are and becomes his most ardent critic.  Se...

       Dream BIG!!   (Why Not?)                                                                                 FINALLY! A  NEW YEAR!! “In an era which has concentrated exclusively on extension of living space and increase of rational knowledge at all costs, it is a supreme challenge to ask man to become conscious of his uniqueness and limitation. Uniqueness and limitation are synonymous. Without them, no perception of the unlimited is possible-and consequently, no coming to consciousness either-merely a delusory identity with it which takes the form of intoxication with large numbers and an avidity for political power” (1960)--C,G, Jung from Memories, Dreams, Reflections  Thanks for visiting this book blog....

In 2020 ICE is a frightening fact of life for undocumented aliens, as is mistreatment at the border for asylum seekers; a far cry from " Give me your tired, your poor,  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”   Lazerus' poem, long part of the American creed, is a question  in 2020. With the rise of the Trump administration there's a belief among his supporters that illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, are unlike "us" Americans. They are criminals, interlopers stealing our jobs/resources. Ironically, this attitude ignores the reality that hardworking immigrants fueled America's climb to the top. The politics of hate has heated up a crisis in 2020, yet as 72 MILES TO GO Shows, the huge impact of immigrant policy on families is not new. Set in Tuscon, Arizonia in 2008-16, the fissures between legal and illegal runs ...

Around 1973, I was living in San Francisco when an actor friend called me from a phone booth to ask  if I wanted to have a drink with Tennessee Williams. Alas, I heard the message the next morning, a missed opportunity you don't forget. Mr Williams was in town for rehearsals at A.C.T. of   SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS . My friend said Williams talked about his problem with the director, who was too respectful. Unlike Kazan, who shaped his plays and made them successful, this director was careful about cutting the text. With all due respect, I am of a different opinion. For me, the 50's naturalism extolled by the Actor's Studio (Kazan was a Founder) seems dated in 2018. And the classic  films productions of  plays Williams is known for, The Glass Menagerie,Cat on the Hot Tin Roof, Street Car fo cus less on the hypnotic reverie he creates on the page, the humor laced with pathos, than the laceration of secrets revealed. While those revelations are profound, the met...

https://www.facebook.com/events/596528227409631/ http://dixonplace.org/performances/boudicca/ Street Cirque's BOUDICCA, Directed, Written & Choreographed by Lauren Elizabeth I didn't know anything about Boudiccas, but my friend said she knew a coder, who used the name. Now I know why. It is a code "for a woman fighting to have her voice heard. It's been centuries, but I can hear her call being revived. on this stage, in media, in our governments, women are demanding to be heard... Let's not wait another 2000 years to listen." (from Director's Note.) Program--The production opens 20 years after the initial Roman invasion of Britain, when Boudicca's husband the largest advocate for peace passes away. What was supposed to be a smooth transition quickly turns into a violent power grab by the Romans. Boudica, her daughters, neighboring tribes, are forced to act as they contemplate what future is worth living for.  Like an Opera, the story is an o...

Excerpt Day 63: March 23 FORMER RUSSIAN MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, DENIS VORONENOV, WAS SHOT DEAD IN BROAD DAYLIGHT Jack Former Russian MP, Denis Voronenkov, an outspoken opponent of Vladimir Putin, was shot dead outside a hotel today. He had fled to Kiev in fear of his life and to help with inquiries into Russia's incursions into the Ukraine. The 45th I thought your plays were going to be about me? This doesn't have anything to do with me. Jill It will. Just wait. Trump's sidelined in Suzan-Lori Park's wise and entertaining 100 PLAYS for the FIRST HUNDRED DAYS (Theatre Communications Group. In this slim, 93 page book, we, the thinking public, are the main attraction, while Trump skirts the sidelines perplexed he's not the mainattraction. In this intelligent darkly funny book, people of good will with humanist values assumed to be universal, find themselves in dystopian land. Stunned like Alice, we identify this strange new place, trying to define the ...

https://vimeo.com/269716307 The mystery of the THE WAPSHOT W HATEVER. What does a cat meme, a desk top of strange icons, a MacLaren stroller, and an orgy have in common? Programs and Users know...Find out   http://dixonplace.org/performances/the-wapshot-whatever-the-secret-lives-of-computer-programs/  more reactio Codi McGarry is an amazingly creative and intrepid designer, undaunted by the most insane requests for projections, animation, sound. Can you make individual icons for characters and put them on a projection of a desk top? What about talking encyclopedias? She can do almost anything, and if it doesn't work the first time....it will soon! If you don't yet have a ticket, TUESDAY May 1st is right around the corner. For more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/101261304023716/permalink/113050032844843/?notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic&notif_id=1524754094052661 ...