As a philosophy undergraduate at the University of Chicago in the early 1960s, I had relatively little instruction from members of the English department. But I was taught Shakespeare by Norman Maclean, whom I had no idea would write "A River Runs Through It." Indeed, I had no idea he wrote fiction. But I should have guessed, for Norman (as I was allowed to call him when I later became a graduate … [Read more...]
Dido and the Swan
Katie Mitchell's latest film and theatre piece is called After Dido. As the title was meant to signal its being inspired by Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, it should probably have been baptised "Long After Dido." (Part of) what the audience heard at the Young Vic (where this collaboration with the English National Opera was staged) was a live performance of the Purcell Opera, with Susan Bickley … [Read more...]
Culture of the week
A not very significant British politician is supposed to have said "A week's a long time in politics." I've been thinking about my last week in "culture," which didn't seem very long at all; indeed, it passed in a flash, though there was a fair bit of commuting between Oxfordshire and London involved. The third revival of Elijah Moshinsky's 2002 production of Il Trovatore at the Royal Opera … [Read more...]
Is Seeing Believing?
In October, 2007 when the National Theatre premiered War Horse, based on a novel by children's writer Michael Morpurgo, adapted by Nick Stafford and performed in association with Handspring Puppet Company, you can perhaps understand why, thinking it was intended as a Christmas offering for kids, I gave it a miss. Not the first mistake I ever made; but, now that I've seen its transfer to the West … [Read more...]
The chef, his wife, the British Army and all that fish
On Monday 30th March 2009, I attended a ceremony to rededicate the monument the chef, Soyer, erected to his wife, Emma, at Kensal Green Cemetery in West London, and where he is buried as well. It was a glorious day, and about 50-75 people, including the French Ambassador, were there to hear a contemporary Franco/British chef, Raymond Blanc, give a moving, sometimes funny account of Soyer's … [Read more...]
It’s not all in the action
Cheek by Jowl's Andromaque is a co-production with the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, and I managed to catch up with it while on tour at Oxford Playhouse. Director Declan Donnellan and his designer/partner Nick Ormerod have devised the most spare production imaginable - a bare stage with only a few chairs, and costumes that amount to Ruritanian uniforms for the men and sexy 1930s/40s French … [Read more...]
Diplomatic niceties
Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont (1728-1810), le Chevalier d'Éon, was a career diplomat, in addition to being a part-time soldier and an amateur spy. But it was only the last of these that attracted the difficult-to-categorise Canadian art/performance producer Robert Lepage. For d'Éon, says the programme for the performance called "Eonnagata" (at … [Read more...]
He’s a Hollander, and He’s OK
At the Royal Opera House (with one more performance, tonight [March 7] and a BBC Radio 3 broadcast on May 30) is one of the musically finest productions of Wagner's Die Fliegenede Hollander I can remember. Bryn Terfel looks more like a Monty Python lumberjack than a sailor, let alone the Wandering Jew, but his singing of the role of the Flying Dutchman is so nuanced … [Read more...]
The beauty and the fashion
There's a lot of noise going on in London about the National Gallery's major show "Picasso: Challenging the Past." Some critics are cross because the London show, unlike its Paris avatar, does not display the Picasso pictures alongside the Old Masters they are "challenging," while others regret the absence of Picasso's contemporaries (viz., Matisse) being available for enlightening comparison. For … [Read more...]
It’s so easy to brush up your Shakespeare
Sometimes it's sheer laziness that keeps us from seeing the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions at their very best - in their Stratford-upon-Avon HQ - as it's only an hour's drive for us, less time than it takes us to drive to London. But I did catch up with the RSC's new "Taming of the Shrew," directed by Conall Morrison, at the Novello in London, and their new "Othello," directed by Kathryn … [Read more...]