Henry V by William Shakespeare, directed by Des McAnuff, Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Stratford, Ontario by David B. Gallagher

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Aaron Krohn as King Henry V. Photo by David Hou.


Henry V
by William Shakespeare

Festival Theatre, Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Stratford, Ontario
until September 29

Director – Des McAnuff
Set Designer – Robert Brill
Costume Designer – Paul Tazewell
Lighting Designer – Michael Walton
Composer – Michael Roth
Sound Designer – Peter McBoyle
Dramaturge – Robert Blacker
Choreographer – Nicola Pantin
Fight Director – Steve Rankin
Ariel Stunt Coordinator – Adrian Young
Archery – Matt Richardson
Associate Director – Lezlie Wade
Associate Costume Designer – Jenna McCutchen
Assistant Lighting Designer – Tristan Tidswell
Assistant Sound Designer – Verne Good
Assistant Dramaturge – Jacob Gallagher-Ross
Assistant Fight Director – Todd Campbell
Fight Captain – Wayne Best
Stage Manager – Maxwell T. Wilson
Assistant Stage Managers – Kathleen Harrison, Angela Marshall, Cynthia Toushan
Production Assistant – Kelsey Rae
Production Stage Manager – Margaret Palmer
Technical Director – Jeff Scollon

Cast:
The English
King Henry V – Aaron Krohn
Duke of Bedford – Ryan Field
Duke of Gloucester – Tyrone Savage
Duke of Exeter – Timothy D. Stickney
Earl of Westmorland – Stephen Russell
Archbishop of Canterbury – James Blendick
Bishop of Ely – David Collins
Lieutenant Bardolph – Randy Hughson
Ensign Pistol – Tom Rooney
Corporal Nim – Christopher Prentice
Boy – Sophia Walker
Hostess – Lucy Peacock
Earl of Cambridge – Victor Ertmanis
Lord Scrope of Masham – Dan Chameroy
Sir Thomas Grey – Roy Lewis
Captain Gower – Wayne Best
Captain Fluellen – Ben Carlson
Captain MacMorris – Keith Dinicol
Captain Jamy – Stephen Gartner
Sir Thomas Erpingham – Randy Hughson
John Bates – David Collins
Alexander Court – Roy Lewis
Michael Williams – Luke Humphrey
Earl of Salisbury – Christopher Prentice
Duke of York – Xuan Fraser

The French
King Charles VI – Richard Binsley
Queen Isabel – Claire Lautier
Louis the Dauphin – Gareth Potter
Catherine – Bethany Jillard
Alice – Deborah Hay
Montjoy – Juan Chioran
Governor of Harfleur – Dan Chameroy
Constable – Michael Blake
Duke of Orléans – Stephen Garnter
Duke of Burgundy – Xuan Fraser
Lord Rambures – Dan Chameroy
Lord Grandpré – Victor Ertmanis
Monsieur le Fer – Keith Dinicol
Messenger – Roben Hutton

The prologue to Henry V is not only an appeal for the audience to indulge its imagination. It is an encomium to the art of acting and its capacity to teach us how to live. It sharpens our sensibilities to the parallels between drama and reality, the stage and the world, the past and the present. It evokes sympathy in us for ourselves as much as for the actors, and it prepares us to recognize a moral lesson in every chronicle. So when he has the Chorus urge us to “piece out our imperfections with your thoughts; / Into a thousand parts divide on man / And make imaginary puissance,” Shakespeare puns on the plural pronoun, hinting that he is about to effect a catharsis, a flushing out of our “imperfections” in the very act of pretending that what happens on stage is real.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, and international journal for the arts!

Sophocles’ Elektra, translated by Anne Carson, directed by Thomas Moschopoulos, by Daniel B. Gallagher – until September 27, Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Stratford, Ontario

Laura Condlln (left) as Chrysothemis and Yanna McIntosh as Elektra in Elektra. Photo Cylla von Tiedemann.

Sophocles’ Elektra

Director – Thomas Moschopoulos
Designer – Ellie Papageorgakopoulou
Lighting Designer – Itai Erdal
Composer – Kornilios Selamsis
Choreographer – Amalia Bennett

Before this play even begins, one can understand why artistic director Des McAnuff was so taken with Thomas Moschopoulos when he saw a production of the latter’s Alcestis at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus a few years ago. As you settle into your seats for this production, members of the cast mingle with the audience before the curtain rises to chat about Elektra, her moral dilemma, and the incontestable role the audience plays in bringing this drama to life.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!







A Subtler Dance — Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s ‘En Atendant’ and ‘Cesena’ at the 18th Sydney Biennale by Andrew Miller

Rosas2

Rosas during performance of Cesena at the Palais des Papes in Avignon. Photo © Anne Van Aerschot. Pictured: dancers Carlos Garbin (left centre) and Marie Goudot (right centre).


Carriageworks theatre, Sydney, September 11 and 14, 2012

En Atendant
Choreography – Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Created and danced by Rosas :
Bostjan Antoncic, Carlos Garbin, Cynthia Loemij, Mark Lorimer, Mikael Marklund, Chrysa Parkinson, Sandy Williams, Sue-Yeon Youn

Music -
…L(ÉLEK)ZEM..’ – Istvan Matuz
En Atendant, souffrir m’estuet (ballade) – Filippo da Caserta
Estampie En Atendant 2 (2010) – Bart Coen
Sus un’ Fontayne (virelai) – Johannes Ciconia
Je prens d’amour noriture (virelai) – anonymous
Esperance, ki en mon coeur – anonymous

Flute – Michael Schmid
Cour et Coeur:
music director and recorders – Bart Coen
fiddle – Birgit Goris
voice – Annelies Van Gramberen
Scenography – Michel François
Costumes – Anne-Catherine Kunz
Rehearsal Director – Femke Gyselinck

Cesena
Concept – Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Björn Schmelzer
Choreography – Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Musical Director – Björn Schmelzer
Created with and danced by Rosas and graindelavoix:
Olalla Alemán, Haider Al Timimi, Bostjan Antoncic, Aron Blom, Carlos Garbin, Marie Goudot, Lieven Gouwy, David Hernandez, Matej Kejzar, Mikael Marklund, Tomàs Maxé, Julien Monty, Chrysa Parkinson, Marius Peterson, Michael Pomero, Albert Riera, Gabriel Schenker, Yves Van Handenhove, Sandy Williams
Scenography – Ann Veronica Janssens
Costumes – Anne-Catherine Kunz
Music – Ars Subtilior

If all sound comes from movement, and all music comes from sound, then all music comes from movement — and so does all dance. Music is defined also by its silences and its spaces — or rather time — left around the notes, but as John Cage so eloquently expressed, silence is not nothing, even if it does not solely belong to the piece of music, neither to the musicians, their instruments nor the composer. There is always “movement” in the general, figurative sense, in an attentive audience, within their minds, their beating hearts, their souls set vibrating — if one can still hear the trepidation of the spheres over the barbaric post-industrial noise of the world. Dance too, similarly or sympathetically, but perhaps not identically, has stillness (despite the multi-modal thrill of the Waltz) sometimes not even with a pose, as we see in En Atendant and Cesena, where the dancers are often merely left as if a scattered handful of sand or the denizens in their place, and neither does this stillness preclude “movement” in the broader, non-scientific sense (though to be fair to science, even in mathematics, the derivative where it equals zero still exists).

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the arts!

Saint-Saëns: Apollo Among the Dionysians by Larry Wallach

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At first, Saint-Saëns was ahead of his time. Then, following his decade at the apex of French music, he was old-fashioned. We remember him today as if he were a composer of ‘light’ music, suitable for Pops concerts and to be excerpted. His most well-known work was a private joke that he hesitated to publish. And yet, as demonstrated by the Bard Festival, he was considerably more than that, a figure through whose music and career a new light is cast on the art and culture of the second half of the nineteenth century.

Read the full review on New York Arts!

The Proms: Haitink and Perahia with the Vienna Philharmonic by Huntey Dent

Haitink

Bernard Haitink conducts the Vienna Philharmonic at the Proms. Photo: BBC/Chris Christodoulou.


Prom 73 – September 6
Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major
Bruckner – Symphony No. 9 in D minor
Murray Perahia - piano

Prom 75 – September 7
Haydn – Symphony No. 104 in D major, ‘London’
R. Strauss – An Alpine Symphony

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Bernard Haitink - conductor

Perennial spring. The Vienna Philharmonic never wants for love and respect, being showered with both almost beyond measure. Their PR department must consist of an answering machine that says, “Thanks for adoring us. Maybe we’ll call you back.” Since their principal season is spent in the opera house, the Philharmonic gives few orchestral concerts compared with the world’s other premiere ensembles. After earning raves and an audience hanging from the rafters at the Proms this summer, these august visitors were described by one London critic as “lifetime members of the high table.” It’s become de rigeur to carp about the absence of women in the orchestra (I counted three), but otherwise, a critic might as well push a macro key on his computer set to endless praise.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the arts!

Timon of Athens at The National Theatre by Huntley Dent

Timon

Gnawing the flesh. It was the best of Timon; it was the worst of Timon. Reducing a stage production to one sentence rarely does it justice, but the National Theatre’s new, wildly popular Timon of Athens, mounted as a showcase for London’s favorite actor, Simon Russell Beale, wins the best and worst prize on several counts. It takes the messiest of Shakespeare’s late plays, a nasty, grinding parable about misanthropy, and delivers a glittering first half that is unexpected magic before the genii departs and we endure the dismal gray of the second half.

Read the full review on The Berkshire Review, an international journal of the arts!

The Berkshire Review paywall has been removed. All content is now free.

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Free Stamp, Willard Park, Cleveland, 1982-91. Photo © 2005 Michael Miller.

The Berkshire Review paywall has been removed. All content is now free.

We are moving to a donation-based model.

Operating the Berkshire Review and New York Arts costs money, and contributions will be vital in our our continuing work. Donations are not at this point tax-deductible, and until that is settled we are presenting a single, open button for you to enter the amount of your donation. You can then pay by credit card or PayPal. Please give generously, if you wish to support our efforts in bringing you the full, serious discussion the arts deserve.

Read the full notice on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!







Support New York Arts - Keep serious arts writing alive in New York City.

Support New York Arts

Support New York Arts. Keep serious discussion of the arts alive in New York.

Operating New York Arts and The Berkshire Review costs money, and contributions will be vital in our our continuing work. Donations are not at this point tax-deductible, and until that is settled we are presenting a single, open button for you to enter the amount of your donation. You can then pay by credit card or PayPal. Please give generously, if you wish to support our efforts to keep serious writing about the arts alive in New York City.

Read the full notice on New York Arts

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The Royal Shakespeare Company's Julius Caesar by Huntley Dent

Julius-caesar

Capitol crime. Julius Caesar isn’t a juicy play. The poetry occupies a narrow range between nobility and a bad conscience. Very little is inward. The famous speeches are public oratory, not soliloquies on the order of Hamlet. It’s the only play of his that could be read from a teleprompter. Only Mark Antony turns to the audience to share a confidence, after he has fawned before the conspirators who killed Caesar yet secretly abhors them. The central role is that of vacillating Brutus, who seems like a dry run for the truly tragic Coriolanus. For these reasons, a great production must make ancient Romans more than stuffed shirts in togas enacting potted history.

Read the full review at The Berkshire Review, an international journal of the arts!

Red Hot Patriot at the Arena Stage, Washington, DC — Kathleen Turner as Molly Ivins, by Louise Levathes

Kathleen Turner in Philadelphia Theatre Company’s production of Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins. Photo by Mark Garvin.

There are moments during Kathleen Turner’s stunning performance in Arena’s Stage current production of Red Hot Patriot when you feel as if the fearless, ass-kicking Texas journalist Molly Ivins (who died at 62 in 2007) is still with us. Turner struts the stage in jeans and red cowboy boots spewing words from Ivins’ columns and stream-of-conscious philosophy (skillfully crafted by playwrights Margaret and Allison Engel) that are so biting, so relevant they could have been written yesterday.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!