dirac

Much obliged to you for reviving this thread, Rosa. I kept meaning to do so and forgetting about it. So far this summer I'm trying to catch up on various magazines stacked about in a fit of what Tom Wolfe once called subscription guilt. I read "Varina Davis: First Lady of the Confederacy" and in a similar vein, "America Aflame" is sitting on the shelf waiting. Also read a book about Warren Jeffs, "Answer Them Nothing" - horrifying stuff. Just started Hank Haney's book, "The Big Miss."

I tend to agree, Plisskin. And thank you for starting the topic.

Thanks for the article. I'd suggest that the situation is less counterintuitive than it appears at first glance. The article notes that theaters have cut prices and are still a relatively cheap evening out and also points out that for escapist purposes people often spend more on entertainment during troubled economic times, not less.

That's what I understand about Canadian coverage as well, sandik. Last night NBC's coverage belatedly shifted to the British team, which at least made the podium. It would have been nice to see more of the gold medalists, but they're Chinese, so I guess NBC figures we don't want to see them.....

Adding that the final would have been even more fun to watch if the coverage hadn't been even more aggressively Americancentric than usual. I'm sure there were some really good routines we didn't see while NBC stayed loyally with the tanking US team.

If I remember the pre-race predictions correctly, the US actually outperformed expectations by coming in second. Lochte and Phelps are both in their late twenties. They're of retirement age for swimmers. Lochte has worked hard to stay in shape but he looked pooped. I suspect he has too much on his plate. Great final. .

NBC needs to keep a camera on Mama Raisman at all times......

Well the industrial revolution was really incredibly beautiful, with gleaming smokestacks covered in glittering gold. Happy workers dancing in the streets for joy at their marvelous working conditions and sunshine, rainbows and lollipops everywhere! It encouraged great progress but also a lot of human misery. The UK was instrumental in the Industrial revolution and as it was critical to the modern world as we know it I can see why it featured so prominently in the opening. I'm rather glad it wasn't whitewashed over though. And the first section, with a verdant england focusing on Glastonbury Tor was quite beautiful. Honestly from what I read I thought it was going to be a bit "weirder" than it was. I thought the William Blake set the tone - the contrast of the beautiful land and the dark satanic mills. There's no reason why a celebration of this kind can't include references to struggle and triumph over circumstances - quite appropriate to the Olympics, when you think about it.

The Times had a nice pic of the Mary Poppins squadron parachuting into the stadium via umbrella.

Thank you for starting this topic, polyphonyfan. I would say you can't go farther down than just below the knee for Swan Lake. As you say, the choreography is better seen that way (and Alexandra's comment explains why).

Ah. I was wondering, because I was looking for that. I was switching back and forth between something else and doing other things, so I thought I might have missed him. She's always looked rather grim in public. She isn't naturally outgoing, so it is work for her. It's too bad, because as photos show she has a nice smile. I do wonder what the kiddies thought as their sovereign gazed balefully on their efforts. With Danny Boyle in charge and given the horrid economic situation, I don't think too much royal pageantry was ever in the offing, which caused me no great distress. It would have been nice, however, to get a little more Vaughan Williams and less pop. I tend to be more interested in the bizarro moments like the Giant Inflatable Beaver. The Great Inflatable Baby wasn't quite in that class.

Because we usually have an Olympics thread.Talk about whatever comes to mind. Initially I didn't get the whole Daniel Craig-Queen thing. Until she turned around I thought I'd switched onto an extended liquor commercial or something.

The Oliviers did back-to-back productions of Antony and Cleopatra and Caesar and Cleopatra in London and New York. According to most reports your parents benefited by seeingo A&C in the latter city, where both Oliviers were much improved. Neither was ideally cast. Probably the most unexpected Cleopatra was that of Edith Evans, of whose performance Kenneth Tynan wrote that she presented a Lady Bracknell cruelly starved of cucumber sandwiches.

Yup. Female poets used to be called "poetesses" and there was often a hint of condescension involved. In a similar vein, "suffragettes," which still appears more frequently than it should, was a derogatory term for "suffragist." Luckily, female novelists never had to worry about being called "novelettes." I will say that where actors are concerned maintaining the distinction has some practical advantage. Given the dearth of good roles for women compared to men, the ladies would be at a distinct disadvantage if awards associations dispensed with the separate Best Actress category. They do call it Best Female Actor and Best Male Actor at the BAFTAs, which is a trifle clunky. But the elimination of the "-esses" in general is a positive development. Thanks for posting this, Mashinka. Very intelligent observations from a wonderful actor. The answer to the question of the headline, of course, is "yes." There are no female roles in Shakespeare to equal the great roles for men, although he provided plenty of fine roles for women to play. The exposure you could give to men playing women, however skilled the actor, was inherently limited (which is why generally Cleopatra's charms are more spoken about than seen). Beatrice and Portia are wonderful parts. They are nothing close to the best roles for the men.

I agree up to a point but there is no denying that the muses and the concept of the muse is crucial to Balanchine's work and inspiration in a way that was not true for Picasso. Balanchine certainly made many great roles for men, but none of them functioned as a primary and chosen source of inspiration, not even Villella. Yes. When any director says that she doesn't want to run a museum, I take it to mean she doesn't want the company to be frozen in time, not that she has no interest in preserving core repertory. (Unless, of course, they say other things that suggest something else in mind. I'm willing to give Lopez the benefit of the doubt but going by the PBS broadcast MCB doesn't seem anything like a museum to me even if they didn't present new work on that program.)

Holm did a superb job with her voiceovers as the unseen Addie Ross in "A Letter to Three Wives." She didn't have to be seen to make her presence felt.

There could be any number of reasons (and not necessarily wholesome ones) why people want to get their story out in conflicts of this kind, on the record or otherwise. Yes on both counts. But it gets dicey if the leader still has a power base and wants to fight. The situation becomes less corporate and more Penn State.

And the hits just keep on coming.....

Nice article, Andre, thanks. It was certainly clear no one was used to having camera crews around all the time.

I don't think it's admirable or not admirable. I don't think he has an obligation to do anything but run the company for the next year honestly until Lopez can take over, since the Board has made it clear what they think of the way he runs it. I think if the company fails to survive, unless Villella actively sabotages it, it will be a reflection on the Board. (It sounds like he wants to detach more than anything.) The Board thinks they can raise the funds to run the Company and create a more realistic budget to put it on more solid financial footing, and they've placed their bets where they see fit. If that bet fails to pay off -- ex: if Villella's supporters take their money and run and there's not enough to replace it, the company gets ho-hum reviews under Lopez, the Knight Foundation stops funding them, they have to downsize their personnel and/or rep and they public doesn't accept it, key dancers flock away -- I think the board will be the ones who will blamed, not Villella. Based on what I've read, nobody looks good. I think it most unlikely that Villella can avoid a share of the responsibility for the debacle.

It's hard to know what happened from news stories alone, but however hamfistedly the board behaved, if Villella wasn't seriously interested in focusing on a succession plan and paying more attention to the bottom line in these hard economic times, then they were truly between a rock and a hard place. (It does sound as if they should have acted earlier, before things arrived at this pass.) Villella is well into his seventies and if he's done very well by the company, the company has also done well by him (and his family). It's not surprising and it's very human. It's also not particularly admirable. These are still his dancers after all, he might think about their jobs. In any case if the company fails to survive, it'll be a reflection on him as well as the board.

Holm is dead at age 95. (Ernest Borgnine, also in his nineties, died recently as well. Not a great month.) A story from the NYT on a dispute between Holm and her children.

He certainly doesn’t look young for his age, but at least he’s still alive – most of his confreres in the group known as the "hellraisers" have already gone to their eternal reward. Yes, it’s a remarkable gallery of film performances. It’s not every actor whose range extends from Henry II to Mr. Chips.

O'Toole says he's done:

It's a shame because six episodes is barely enough time for a show to gain its land legs, but that's the way it is now. My hunch is that if they'd begun with such segments, though, the ratings might have been even lower. On the other hand it was worth trying, and surely time could have been spared from hearing the dancers telling us repeatedly that they have to give it all they've got, etc. But that's not what reality shows do. My low expectations were reasonably satisfied, although if the show hadn't focused on a ballet company I'd certainly not have been watching it.