Rendering №8

The title of the article is “ Shoes and Racism, for Sport”, it was published on " on online version of “New York Times” on 15 March 2013. This article is devoted to the play ‘‘Honky’ at Urban Stages.

“Honky,” a hilarious play by Greg Kalleres receiving its premiere at Urban Stages, would probably have felt more cutting-edge about 25 years ago, but it’s still a daffy treat, irreverently tackling a subject that appears destined to be forever uncomfortable: race.
And as Greg said: “Just because you’re late to the party doesn’t mean you can’t be the life of the party.”

The event that sets things in motion — a black teenager is killed for his trendy basketball shoes — feels less surprising now than it might have in the early Air Jordan days, but Mr. Kalleres has a good time with the premise, once it gets rolling. Before this too-preposterous-to-detail story is done, the shoe company president (Philip Callen), who is white, is taking a new antiracism pill; the white writer of the shoe’s ad campaign (Dave Droxler) is receiving highly unorthodox treatment from his black therapist (Arie Bianca Thompson); and the shoe’s black designer (Anthony Gaskins) is rethinking his racially based rage.

A play with this rapid-fire pace and this many scene changes really needs a revolving stage, or at least a bigger one. But the director, Luke Harlan, makes everything move as briskly as possible, given the limitations. It’s an intermissionless hour and 45 minutes that feels half that long.

According to the article Everyone in the cast is pretty good, with standout performances from Mr. Gaskins and Danielle Faitelson as a chatterbox who lacks the filters most people have to prevent them from blurting out inappropriate things.

Finally I can say that after the reading of reviews of the play I really wanted to see it. I think it worth watching, especially for young people.
http://theater.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/theater/reviews/honky-at-urban-stages.html?_r=0

Rendering №7

The title of the article is “Economy Is Woeful, and the Sex Even Worse”, it was published on " on online version of “New York Times” on 24 March 2013. This article is devoted to the play ‘For Love,’ by Laoisa Sexton, at Irish Repertory Theater.

After recent excursions into Americana with the radio play of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” rural nostalgia with “Donnybrook!” and 20th-century institutional repression with “Airswimming,” the Irish Repertory Theater switches into high contemporary gear with “For Love,” a riotously tart and fiercely energetic production that opened on Tuesday. Billed as a “dark blue romantic comedy,” the play — a dramedy, really, only fleetingly romantic — plunges straight into Ireland’s fraught urban present.

Consider the opening scene: A couple drunkenly stagger into an apartment — the woman clinging to a drink — and collapse on the floor, intent on sloppy, impassioned lovemaking. But the fellow blacks out, and the woman loudly curses, enraged at her unconscious date. Then she passes out. And there you have it: “For Love,” a portrait of women in their mid-30s struggling in recession-ravaged Dublin, might be called “Bad Sex and the City.” But that would be reductive. It is much, much more.

It is the relationship between the strident Val and the delicate Bee that is the fulcrum here, and ultimately the salvation of both. Though mentioned merely in passing, Ireland’s economic state hovers like a dark cloud over the proceedings. But when these frenemies wind up, almost Beckett-like, in a field at night searching for an expensive lost brassiere, it’s clear that no derelict male or dire recession can threaten the bond they share.

In conclusion, I can say, that I’ve read many reviews of the play, and was surprised that American audience didn’t like the play. So many men, so many minds. Personally I liked the theme of it and all that I’ve read.
http://theater.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/theater/reviews/for-love-by-laoisa-sexton-at-irish-repertory-theater.html

Rendering №6

The title of the article is “At This Movie House, the Drama Is Off Screen”, it was published on " on online version of “New York Times” on 12 March 2013.
This article is devoted to the play “Flick” by by Annie Baker.
Love, friendship and the daily grind all take on a distinctly sticky quality in “The Flick,” the moving, beautifully acted and challengingly long new play by Annie Baker that opened on Tuesday night at Playwrights Horizons in Manhattan.

In “The Flick,” directed by Ms. Baker’s frequent collaborator Sam Gold with the customary feathery touch he brings to her work, life’s messy nature takes mild metaphorical form. The three central characters in Ms. Baker’s comedy-drama work in a single-screen movie theater in Worcester County, Mass., realized in grungily acute detail by the set designer David Zinn.
The plot of the play is the following: Mr. Maher’s Sam, already into his 30s, takes a modestly paternal attitude toward the new kid on the job, the 20-year-old Avery, who has dropped out of college for a semester after a family trauma. Drawing him out as he walks him through the monotonous routine, Sam discovers that Avery is a film geek with preternatural recall.

For all the delicacy and insight of the writing, the epiphanies certainly take their sweet time coming in “The Flick,” which at three hours (with one intermission) runs about as long as your average Shakespeare production. The emotional impact of the events that gradually leave one of the characters feeling alienated from the others is somewhat vitiated by the play’s inordinate length. (Ms. Baker’s plays “The Aliens” and “Circle Mirror Transformation” achieved equally potent effects at considerably shorter duration.)

And yet if you have any feeling for ordinary people in furtive search of those extraordinary things — requited love, true friendship, a sustaining belief in man’s humanity to man — that can ennoble any life (or blight it, should they be lost), this lovingly observed play will sink deep into your consciousness, and probably stay there for a while. Without question “The Flick” requires your patience, but it rewards that patience too, bountifully.

To sum it up I’d like to say that this playwright is a story, or even a small life, and people surely will enjoy this story. Here people can notice all sorts of people, because this is the play about everybody. That’s where I’d like to end.

Film Review. Finding Neverland

Recently, I have watched the film «Finding Neverland». Now I would like to tell a few words about this film.
Cast:
Johnny Depp as J. M. Barrie

Kate Winslet as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies

Dustin Hoffman as Charles Frohman

Julie Christie as Mrs. Emma du Maurier

Radha Mitchell as Mary Ansell Barrie

Freddie Highmore as Peter Llewelyn Davies

Nick Roud as George Llewelyn Davies

Joe Prospero as Jack Llewelyn Davies

Luke Spill as Michael Llewelyn Davies

Ian Hart as Arthur Conan Doyle

Oliver Fox as Gilbert Cannan

Mackenzie Crook as Mr. Jaspers

Kelly Macdonald as Peter Pan

Angus Barnett as Nana/Mr. Reilly

Toby Jones as Smee

Kate Maberly as Wendy Darling

Matt Green as John Darling

Catrin Rhys as Michael Darling

Tim Potter as Captain Hook/George Darling

Jane Booker as Mary Darling

Eileen Essell as Mrs. Snow

Jimmy Gardner as Mr. Snow

Directed by Marc Forster

Synopsis:  Finding Neverland is a 2004 semi-biographical film about playwright J. M. Barrie and his relationship with a family who inspired him to create Peter Pan, directed by Marc Forster. The screenplay by David Magee is based on the play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee. The film was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor for Depp's portrayal of J. M. Barrie, and won one forJan A. P. Kaczmarek's musical score. Director Marc Forster took on this biography of playwright James Matthew Barrie, the scribe who penned the children's classic Peter Pan. Johnny Depp stars as the turn-of-the-century writer as the film follows Barrie as he struggles to write and have his play produced while he cares for his down-on-their-luck neighbors who inspired the story in the first place. J.M. Barrie's Neverland also stars Dustin Hoffman, Kate Winslet, and Julie Christie. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

Rewiew: London, 1903: four lads, three women, and J.M. Barrie in the year he writes "Peter Pan." After one of his plays flops, Barrie meets four boys and their widowed mother in the park. During the next months, the child-like Barrie plays with the boys daily, and their imaginative games give him ideas for a play. Simultaneously, a friendship deepens with Sylvia, the lads' mother, to the chagrin of his wife Mary, with whom he spends little time (separate bedrooms); the widow's mother; and high society, which gossips about his attraction to the widow and to her sons. As Sylvia's health worsens, Barrie's ties to the boys strengthen and he must find a way to take his muse to Neverland.
As for for actors Depp is a charm . He becomes his own, subtly compelling Barrie.
As for me, I was impressed with the film, it let me realize that any person have an inner child, and sometimes we should this child out to explore the world of miracle.

Rendering № 5

The title of the article is “Why My Theatre Matters! matters…”, it was published on "Stage.co.uk" on 14 March 2013."
It is something of a timely coincidence that the launch of the My Theatre Matters! campaign comes little more than a week after two rather contrasting arts funding announcements from councils in Belfast and Westminster.
Westminster, which has completely cut its arts spending, is part of a substantial and growing company of councils that have opted either to cease to support cultural provision or downgrade it to the point that it will be rendered a shadow of what it once was.
One could namecheck Sheffield, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Taunton and Staffordshire among recent offenders, but the certainty is that before the year’s end there will be plenty of others. Denying the value of arts spending, or at least reducing it, is an easy option for councillors. One can always point to another service that addresses more obviously a fundamental need among residents.
In Belfast, we have an example of a council prepared not only to defend its present investment but also to enhance it to a considerable degree.
Is it coincidence that a city with more experience than any other in the UK of fractured communities, violence and economic depression should be doing this? Apparently not, given that a spokesman cites the benefits to be gained in terms of “quality of life and wealth creation”.
My Theatre Matters! is a slogan that speaks for many thousands of us. Together with Equity and the TMA, The Stage invites you to come out from the shadows and be counted by signing up to this campaign.

All in all, it is evident that the problem of theatre funding is a burning issue. We can not but say about it, because we can't stay indifferent to the problem, because theatres are our heritage. That’s where I’d like to end. http://www.thestage.co.uk/columns/editors-blog/2013/03/why-my-theatre-matters-matters/

Summary № 6

Briony in 1999 on her 77th Birthday as she is about to make her “last visit” to the Imperial War Museum library in Lambeth. She has received “dozens of letters” from Colonel Nettle to help her tell her story, of which he will donate to the library, but she is losing her mind and  can't remember any parts of her life.She was married to a man named Thierry, who died fifteen years ago. Then Briony goes to Tilney Hotel for the event.Briony is a well-accomplished writer and that her books are being studied in high schools across England.A group of the younger relatives (mostly Quinceys) appear on a mock-stage and begin a performance of "The Tales of Arabella." Briony is shocked and pleased.She decided to publish her last and most important novel - the only one real crime of wartime Britain – Lola’s, Marshall’s, her own. But she has to wait until all the characters are dead before publication so she can avoid the risk of being sued for libel for not changing names, something she refuses to do as part of her “atonement.”Cecilia died shortly thereafter in a London bombing. The letters between Robbie and Cecilia, the "two lovers," are now in the archives of the war museum and not her possession.Brione's explanation is that she did not think the reader would want to believe that they never met again, lived together again, and loved again.
Brione couldn't find atonement for God, for her sister and,certainly for Robbie. 

Summary № 5

Robbie Turner navigating two privates through the countryside of World War II France. He is injured.England is on the retreat back towards the North and France has been occupied by Germany completely. The three British soldiers, Robbie Turner and Corporals Mace and Nettle are on route to Dunkirk where they can catch a Naval ship back to England.

Turner spent three and a half years in a British prison for his crimes against Lola, but Cecilia remained supportive of his innocence, abandoning all the members of her family completely. She is now a nurse and living in London, she writes letteres to Robbie, they dream to have a happy life together someday, and this is the only fact that helps Robbie to stay alive. Finally Robbie and his privates manage to leave France for England.
Briony is a nurse and she takes care of wounded soldiers.And she realizes that all the nursing in the world would not make up for what she has done to her sister and Robbie Turner. She receives a letter from her father. In it, he informs her that Lola and Paul Marshall are to be married.  Then she will write Robbie a letter in “great detail” about everything that led up to what she saw at the lake and why she blamed Robbie.She also tells them about the marriage.

Robbie and Cecilia meet Briony to the subway station. She apologizes again for all that she has done. The apology is received blankly.This is the last time Briony sees either of them.

Summary № 4

Robbie contemplates his feelings towards Cecilia. He writes Cecilia an apology letter for breaking the vase. He has trouble doing this, finding the right words, even reaching into his deepest desires and typing sexual wishes to her. Robbie asks Briony to run ahead and pass the note to Cecilia. Briony obliges and runs ahead and into the home with Robbie’s apology note. As she runs off, Robbie realizes he has mistakenly placed the wrong letter in the envelope. Briony passes the letter to her sister, but she have read at first. The girl was shoked, she tells Lola about it, and they describes Robbie as a "Maniac". Then Briony enters the library and discovers Robbie and Cecilia pinned up in the corner. Her perception is that of an attack and that her sister is being held there against her will. Briony is sure that Robby is a criminal. 

Twins runs away from home and when search parties are organized, Briony is searching for the twins on her own. She finds Lola,who was in the process of being raped. Briony realizes Lola doesn’t know who it was, creating an opening for her to plant the notion that it had to be “the maniac.”As they walk to the house, Briony tells everyone thaat she know exactly that Robbie is guilty. Robbie is arrested and soon jailed for rape. Everybody breakes with Robbie, except his mother and Cecilia. 

Rendering №4

The title of the article is “Stuttgart museum returns looted medieval masterpiece”, it was published in the online version of "The Art Newspaper" on 05 March 2013.

I’d like to point out right at the beginning that “Virgin and Child”, a 15th-century painting attributed to the Master of Flémalle (1375-1444) was returned back to the estate of Max Stern, a German-born Jewish dealer who fled the Nazis and later operated the Dominion Gallery in Montreal.

The return of Virgin and Child marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Galerie Julius Stern in Düsseldorf and the tenth anniversary of the Max Stern Art Restitution Project at Concordia University in Montreal. In 1935 after Stern closed the business, 228 works from the gallery were auctioned at Mathias Lempertz in Cologne in 1937. Virgin and Child was sold with other works after Stern had fled to London. Then the painting came into the hands of the Frankfurt art dealer Alexander Haas, who sold it to a Dr Scheufelen in 1939. In 1948, 125 works from Scheufelen’s collection were willed to the museum. Tracing the picture’s provenance was complicated by the destruction of Stern’s business records when his London flat was bombed during the Blitz. The Holocaust Claims Processing Office (HCPO) of the New York State Department of Financial Services has supported the claim by researching the painting’s history and corresponding with the Staatsgalerie.

Before it is shipped to Canada, the painting will be studied by experts; researchers do not rule out a reattribution.

It only remains for me to say that this masterpiece has a great history, all in all, it is evident that nowadays people should try to keep it in safe. Nobody doubts that our heritage is art. 

Film review. Frida

Recently, I have watched the film Frida. Now I would like to tell a few words about this film. 
Frida is a 2002 Miramax/Ventanarosa biopic which depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It starsSalma Hayek in her Academy Award nominated portrayal as Kahlo and Alfred Molina as her husband, Diego Rivera.
It tells the story of a really unusual life:  Frida is a student, young, beautiful, full of live and in love with a gorgeous boy,she experiences a horrible accident when her bus crashes with a tram. Frida then becomes a cripple for the rest of her life, but through this she experiences herself in a new way and starts to paint. Soon after the accident a miracle happens: Frida learns to walk again and the first thing she does is to visit the famous artist and painter Diego Rivera to ask his opinion about her paintings – the beginning of an unusual and often complicated love story that should last a lifetime.

We get to known a woman who experiences so many tragic things in life that it should be enough to commit suicide, yet she never gives up. The wonderful Salma Hayek, who is immensely gifted, does really great work here.This is a "have to see or regret for life".

Summary №3

Briony gazes out the window and observes from a far distance, the fountain scene between Cecilia and Robbie. Too young to fully comprehend what she is witnessing, Briony mistakes the scene for Robbie proposing to Cecilia and having complete command over her, forcing her to disrobe and “drown herself” so he can save her and have her hand in marriage. After that Briony realizes that her play is “a mistake” and she is not a child already. Briony has completely given up on her play. Leon and his friend Paul arrive.

Summary №2

Cecilia Tallis has come home from school for the summer, and the weeks since finals ended have been filled with inactivity. She has had a long-term relationship with Robbie (since they were 7) including attending Cambridge University together. While there, Cecilia and Robbie run in different circles because of a distinct separation in class. This separation in friendship may have built up some suppressed anger towards Cecilia from Robbie because of her family wealth and his lack thereof, as well as a loss of in loyalty. 

Rendering №3

The title of the article is “Seattle to unveil Doug Aitken’s digital Land Art”, it was published in the online version of "The Art Newspaper" on 01 March 2013.  

It discusses the creation of US artist Doug Aitken, who created created an “urban earthwork” for the façade of the Seattle Art Museum, which is due to be unveiled this month (24 March).

 “Land art from the 1960s and 1970s exists in remote locations. I was interested in creating something very urban,” Aitken says.

Mirror is a large LED screen, wrapped around the corner of the museum, with thin strips of vertical lights. Aitken has been filming for the project over the past five years, capturing images of central Seattle as well as the surrounding area, “from the Pacific Coast to the Cascade Mountains”, he says. 

A computer programme will select which parts of the footage to project in response to a live feed of information that will range from the weather to the density of traffic in the streets of Seattle.
Mirror is a large LED screen, wrapped around the corner of the museum, with thin strips of vertical lights. Aitken has been filming for the project over the past five years, capturing images of central Seattle as well as the surrounding area, “from the Pacific Coast to the Cascade Mountains”, he says. 
A computer programme will select which parts of the footage to project in response to a live feed of information that will range from the weather to the density of traffic in the streets of Seattle.
A computer programme will select which parts of the footage to project in response to a live feed of information that will range from the weather to the density of traffic in the streets of Seattle.
 
In conclusion I’d like to say, that I think such inventions are really great. They can turn up the world of modern art.
Some people can say that it is not an art, but personally I don’t think so. Why couldn’t we accept smth new sometimes? It impresses our mind, and I think it’s enough to name it “art”.

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Seattle-to-unveil-Doug-Aitkens-digital-Land-Art/28993