dirac

The series is now available in its entirety via streaming and On Demand. I saw the first episode last night. The adjectives “dark” and “unflinching” have been used to describe the show and they are accurate enough. There are the customary shots of dangerously skinny girls with scary feet. The heroine, played and danced appealingly by Sarah Hay, comes outfitted with the emotional problems that, as noted previously, seem to be standard issue for cable drama protagonists these days. (She has the emotional problems because of a Terrible Secret.) There are some humorous moments, but it’s not at all clear that writer/producer Moira Walley-Beckett is in on the joke. I also wonder about the heroine's habit of sleeping covered in books, presumably as a source of psychological comfort. It make for a striking overhead shot, but there must be quite the racket when she turns over. The more relaxed censorship that is afforded pay cable is used in ways both good and bad. Good: the casual attitude toward nudity and various states of undress that will be familiar to anyone who’s spent a lot of time backstage in a theater. Bad: pretty much everything else. For a show that is supposed to be showing us the dark underbelly of ballet, we spend a disproportionate amount of time in the dark underbelly of a strip club. Walley-Beckett has made a very big production about casting real dancers, so it’s to be hoped that in the future episodes they’ll get to do some more actual dancing. Sascha Radetsky makes a good impression playing what seems to be a more jaded version of his nice boy in “Center Stage” and I anticipate fun moments from Dvorovenko as the druggie senior ballerina. (Speaking of dangerously skinny – I’m sure Dvorovenko’s thinness is perfectly natural, but gee – get this girl some cheesecake.) Anyone else see it? (Be careful to post spoiler alerts if you are binge-watching.)

I don’t think the WSJ article necessarily applies to you, Stecyk. (Thanks for the link, BTW, interesting read.) The piece is mainly about a subsection of people who can’t tolerate any kind of loud or loudish chewing in any circumstances, not just in a theater where people are trying to concentrate on a performance. I agree with Fraildove – I don’t know when noshing, quietly or otherwise, became okay during anything other than an outdoor performance or in a movie house. And even in the cinema there are supposed to be rules – you do most of your eating during the (endless) previews or early in the movie, and refrain from excessive crinkling of plastic and paper. (I get really annoyed by crinkling noises.) That said, in some cases you may have to tolerate it, at least in places where rules are not in place and/or it’s not possible to complain discreetly to an usher. You never know when you’ll run into someone like this guy. At least in the heavily armed US of A.

Thanks, Lynette H. Great links.

I certainly don't regard looking frail as a matter requiring forgiveness. Nor does such appearance reflect in any way on someone's mental state, IMO. "Dance, Girl, Dance" unusual movie for the time in that the O’Hara character chooses to pursue her career rather than give it up for a guy. Lucille Ball is also good in it, as pherank notes. In fact it's the best performance by her that I've seen in a feature film. Also, in most of her better known pictures O’Hara was featured in male-oriented movies where her character was important but not central. I forgot to mention the original version of The Parent Trap, which I happen to like. Her co-star, Brian Keith, was another performer who didn’t always get his due.

I think Death of a Salesman and The Crucible both qualify as classics, but I would hesitate to call either of them great. (I wouldn’t call Miller great.) A View from the Bridge never made much sense to me – the “incest” theme is a red herring and the dramatic situation did not seem to me to be the stuff of tragedy, to put it mildly. I don’t doubt your impressions or that powerful actors could make it an evening worth sitting through. The Crucible has its problems but it can be effective even in a less than first rate production. I admire The Misfits in its original form as a short story. The movie Everybody Wins, directed by Karel Reisz with an original screenplay by Miller, is a mess, but an interesting mess.

I’ve never seen a stage production of Bridge but I did see the movie and read Miller’s original versified version, and quite frankly any “reinvention” could only help. On the other hand, “The Crucible” improves with the years IMO and has survived better than anyone probably thought it would at the time of its original production, and not only because it’s become required reading in classrooms.

Not his biggest fan, myself, but all the same, attention must be paid, and rightly so. Related. A new production of A View From the Bridge.

Thanks for posting, pherank. O’Hara was interviewed on Turner Classic Movies not too long ago, looking rather frail. Another link to the golden age gone. RIP to a talented and spirited lady with looks made for Technicolor. She played a ballet dancer in “Dance, Girl, Dance,” directed by the pioneering female director Dorothy Arzner and also featuring Lucille Ball. It bombed at the time of release but is well regarded now. It’s worth checking out. I especially liked O'Hara in “The Quiet Man” opposite her frequent co-star John Wayne. If you can get past the picture’s cartoonish Irishry – Ernie O’Malley of the old IRA, a friend of John Ford’s, is listed as an “advisor,” I can’t imagine what he must have really thought about it –there’s a solid story about the relationship of a newly married couple from two different cultures. O’Hara’s brother refuses to come up with her dowry. Wayne doesn’t care, but O’Hara does, passionately. Eventually they come to a new and richer understanding of each other.

I thought it was a reasonably funny parody of reality show talking heads. Nice segment.

Adding to this that in the context of the show, the segment was shown at the beginning of the broadcast, not the tail end, took up a fair amount of time, and the finale included other dancers from ABT as well as Misty. The jokes about how funny guys look in tutus were fairly obvious, but viewers could learn what a changement is.

Copeland gives a ballet lesson on Live with Jimmy Kimmel.

The shrinking violet interpretation always puzzled me anyway, because it’s obvious that Desdemona is a strong woman, or she never would have defied her father and everyone else to marry the hunky black guy in the first place. Maggie Smith got that across very well in the Olivier Othello, although she was wrong for the part in pretty much every other aspect. (On the other hand, Ophelia does not work as a forceful woman. She’s a frail flower that gets stomped on and it’s important that she be so. But I digress.)

Well.... up to a point. I expect that women back then knew very well when men were trying to intimidate them or pushing them around and weren't happy about it when it happened, although they may have been more accepting of it. If the women who were dancing that original didn't see the sailors' actions that way, it was probably because they weren't being played that way. I intended to return to the point Arlene Croce made earlier - that new inflections had entered the performance that weren't there previously. That doesn't mean the lighter interpretation is no longer acceptable, or that the scene can't be played lightly.

Possibly. Or, because of our own cultural assumptions – underlying or right out there - we could be reading something into it that wasn’t there at the time, was never intended to be there, and wasn’t present with the original cast in the original time and place. (I should note that ambiguity does not exist with those kids in blackface.)

Thanks, pherank. Gene Kelly once said he thought Vera-Ellen was one of the most underrated dancers in movies, she could do almost anything.

Thank you for telling us about the performance, YouOverThere. It's not uncommon for actors to double up on roles in Shakespeare, but it shouldn't be a distraction!

Bussell talks about "Strictly Come Dancing" and fitness in a post-ballet life. Related.

You're welcome.

A nice Q&A with Farrell here.

Thanks as always for keeping us posted, Pamela. I note that this award is for nonfiction, a rarity in Nobel history. And, Philip Roth is snubbed again! The New Yorker will be so upset.

I presume you didn’t mean that last sentence seriously?? I note that the turkeys presented to NYCB by visiting menfolk over the years (not to mention the Big Boss himself), have not deterred Martins from inviting men to make dances. (Obviously he can’t swear off himself, although it’s a fun idea -- “Stop Me Before I Choreograph Again!”)

"Raven" seems to be an increasingly popular name for girls these days, I assume because of the "Raven Girl" thing(?) Although I rather like crows -- smart and resourceful scavengers, rather like people -- I'd not give my daughter a name that brought them to mind, but parents have their own notions.

No doubt. But not necessarily as an internationally renowned choreographer, stager, and leader of a company.

True. That's one of the points made in the NPR piece - women in ballet companies face more intense competition and have a higher workload than the men, and thus have less time to experiment with making dances or indeed do much of anything else. Another quote: Depressing to hear this sort of thing from Tharp, although not entirely surprising. Nobody's saying it's anyone's "prerogative" to be an artist (and I presume she didn't mean to suggest that dancers aren't artists). It is a very tough road for men and women alike, only for women it tends to be just that much harder. Yes, indeed, there are "some writers." The reason for that is writing is something you can do at home, and thus a more ready avenue of expression for women, whose opportunities to travel and work outside the home have traditionally been limited. Finally - Tharp came up through modern dance. I wonder if it's possible that if Tharp had been a ballet student and only a ballet student, she might never have become a choreographer.

A happy end to the Four Year Engagement, a positively Victorian length of time. Congratulations!