Theatre of the New Ear. Two radio plays: one by Charlie Kaufman, the other by the Coen Brothers, recorded live and starring Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep.
[more inside]
posted by jack_mo
on Nov 20, 2008 -
18 comments
Harold Pinter at 75. In
One for the Road, the protagonist is Nicolas,
a whisky-sodden interrogator who has brought in a family for questioning (and, it is implied, raping and torturing). In the short, sharp shock of
The New World Order, we eavesdrop on a conversation between two torturers, held over the top of their mute, blindfolded victim's head ("We haven't even finished with him. We haven't begun."). In
Ashes to Ashes, the interrogation of Rebecca by Devlin takes a sinister turn as we learn that her ex-lover participated in state-sponsored violence. In
Mountain Language, a sadistic guard plays power games with a group of mountain dwellers, who are forbidden from speaking in anything but the language of the state. In
Party Time, Pinter lampoons the smug security of the middle classes, portraying an insufferably élite party which carries on regardless of the violence and terror on the streets outside.
Now, for Pinter's 75th birthday,
some of the tormentors and the tormented so potently etched in his later plays are assembled together in a new dramatic work with a musical setting by the composer James Clarke.
posted by matteo
on Oct 7, 2005 -
12 comments
I have been thinking about
masks lately.
Masks are
ancient and
universal, our ancestors put on masks to become an other, to become a god, even unto
this day.
Greek tragedy and
comedy began in the worship of
Dionysos, the
god of wine, intoxication, and creative ecstasy, in
rituals where worshipers often wore or worshipped masks. Indeed, the word for mask in Greek drama was persona, now commonly used to describe
constructed online identities. And so
we understand ourselves as wearing masks, whole series of masks--behind which we find only emptiness, for we can never see ourselves truly.
posted by y2karl
on Feb 24, 2005 -
30 comments
The Animated William Blake "embraces both the freak and the genius, illuminating the artist's visionary poetry with juggling and physical theater." Earthly delights include t-shirts and fortune cookies.
posted by bingo
on Mar 29, 2002 -
4 comments
