dirac

Thank you for that reminiscence, Renata. By all accounts she was a fine person.

I wonder, upon further thought, if the talent drain and changing times aren’t related – the soaps gradually start fading and promising writers and producers look to other fields to make their names? Ryan’s Hope was another favorite of mine, although it was never one of the major soaps.

Thanks, miliosr. I had forgotten about the OJ trial.

Yes. A classic example being William Conrad, who was a great sounding Marshal Dillon on the radio but when the time came to move Gunsmoke to television the network wouldn't have him.

I don’t believe anyone said it wasn’t. We’re all about taste and opinions here. I’ll say that I don’t care for it when the performers think the gags are more funny than I do, but it could be me. I think that in general the view of professionals is that certain kinds of comedy are more effective when the pans stay dead. I had a drama teacher who cited the constant corpsing of the Burnett cast as a good example of What Not to Do. Laurence Olivier used to tell a story about Noel Coward becoming annoyed with Olivier when the latter, still a relative neophyte, was playing with him in Private Lives and having trouble stifling his giggles at the antics of Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, and Coward didn’t quit getting after him until Olivier was cured of the habit. I’m sure Noel and Gertie really were hilarious, but on the Burnett show it would happen even when the sketch wasn’t wildly funny, and for me it had the same irksome effect of turning up the laugh track– it’s saying to the audience, “Look, this is funny. Really.” Ah, yes, Erica Kane and Jeff Martin, that star-crossed union. Jeff was played by John James, who later showed up as another Jeff on Dynasty. My brain is filled with such essential information. No wonder I can't make any money.....

Yes, it reminded me of the number that closes out Slumdog Millionaire, which is also set in a train station. Modern dance used to be interested in group dancing in public. Maybe we'll see a kind of revival.

Hello, Rosa, and thanks for posting. There's a pre-existing thread on "Reading Dance" in the Writings on Ballet forum, FYI, and people have commented on the book there. Glad to hear it, Cristian.Congrats! What are you reading these days, BTers?

Yes, indeed. Thanks for posting. There's a new book out on Anderson, too.

The hills, or the train stations, are alive with "The Sound of Music" in Antwerp.

Good points, GoCoyote, but I would say that such improvements have brought about changes onstage because dancers with different bodies from dancers of the past are inevitably going to move in different ways (and look different, even if they are doing the same steps). There are indeed other factors at work, however.

I think the name of that memorable character was Palmer Cortlandt. One of the nice things about the soaps is that they give good opportunities to older performers as well as young ones, as sidwich pointed out.

Michael Zaslow was fabulous as Roger. I'll say. Hi, canbelto, good to hear from you.

More details on the end of the show.

Audience tastes are changing, and the daytime drama numbers have declined as women headed out into the workforce. perky, you don't really have to watch a soap every single day (that's why the stories move so slowly - so you can miss a few days or even weeks and catch up relatively quickly). "As the World Turns" has produced two major movie stars, Julianne Moore and Meg Ryan. Marisa Tomei and Parker Posey too, I think. It can seem at times as if everyone is underwater. (Off topic. Countless sketches were ruined or damaged on on the Burnett show because the cast couldn't stop laughing (or were encouraged to break up, I began to suspect). I used to watch with my father and he'd say, "I hate it when they do that." )

A tentpole character is a character around whom you can build a longterm audience, one who seizes the attention of the public. "Erica Kane" of All My Children was a tentpole character. In the movie "Soapdish," the actress played by Sally Field has that role in her fictional soap. I guess you could call "Luke and Laura" on General Hospital a tentpole couple. The term is used in other fields, too. Times are changing, and it may be that the soap opera era is passing, slowly. Sad news, miliosr. The Guiding Light was a great show back when, although All My Children was the only one I really watched for the longest period.

Looks like this picture might really happen.

Thank you for posting this article, robynn (and thanks to Ray for the second link). Such changes are an ongoing topic of discussion here on Ballet Talk. That certainly sounds fair enough. As in athletics, you can see general trends over time in the past century: progress in medicine and health, training, nutrition, etc. leading to athletes and dancers becoming perceptibly taller, stronger, and faster overall. (I should note this is not the same as saying “Pavlova wasn’t so great; any corps dancer could outpoint her today,” etc.) Legs have been going higher in dancers of both sexes and it seems to me that was to some extent inevitable, although current taste certainly plays a role. (There’s a passage in Maria Tallchief’s bio, I recall from memory, where she is teaching class at NYCB with the young Suzanne Farrell, and she suggests that Farrell raise her leg a bit. “You mean like this?” asks Farrell, and the leg extends to the heavens. Tallchief then says very graciously that she realized then why Balanchine was so focused by the capabilities of his new young dancers.) More thoughts, perhaps on different schools and training as well?

Valerie Eliot has released a rejection letter from her husband, writing in his capacity as publishing executive, to George Orwell regarding “Animal Farm.” What do you think, BTers? Was Eliot right or wrong, and what do you think of the grounds he chose?

Bumping this up, in the hopes that Cristian and any other BTer who might have attended tells us about the performance!

Thanks, innopac, he did indeed.

Finally caught this on cable. Fulfilled my less-than-great expectations. As a writer Michael Patrick King is still out of ideas for these characters and as a director he has no clue how to handle the larger canvas of the big screen. It’s not bad up until the wedding disaster, if you can stomach all the product placements, but after that it has nowhere to go. Kristin Davis and Kim Cattrall supply what zip there is although their material is terrible. Cynthia Nixon does not transcend her terrible material but it ‘s hardly her fault. It’s sad in a way, because anyone coming to this movie cold will never get any idea of how good the series could be. (On the other hand, the film doesn't seem to have been aimed to appeal to outsiders - it's for those already initiated into the cult, like the first Star Trek feature film.) Jennifer Hudson is in it. On the other hand this movie was a big hit and raised Hollywood interest in the female audience, and there’s no reason why the ladies can’t have a few of their own mediocre buddy movies. It was also nice to see women clearly identified as being over forty shown as interested in sex and sexually interesting to others.

Maurice Jarre has died at age 84.

A collection of Samuel Beckett’s letters has been published. Looks good. Review here. That passage reminded me of an old New Yorker piece by Ian Frazier, who seized upon this comment from Beckett, included in the new collection: Frazier took up this idea and offered up a sample flight with your pilot Samuel Beckett. You can find Frazier’s piece in his collection, Dating Your Mom. Here’s a quote:

Thanks for alerting us to this, abatt. I hope BTers will see it and comment!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but even if it’s silent and unobtrusive it’s still illegal. And as grateful as we spectators may be for bootleg recordings and bootleg films, the artists whose work is subject to such practices may feel differently. It's a thorny issue.