papeetepatrick

I think I know what he means, but it's still the kind of thing a bit dangerous to jump all the way into. I haven't seen the Royal Ballet enough to see anything like that in them, and would always see them as some sort of paragon of an 'adult company' from what I've seen live and on tape. POB also, but I've never seen them except way back in the old days with 'Notre Dame de Paris' from Petit, which I paid little attention to, beyond tapes. I've noticed it more with American companies, and the most extreme was at PNB recently at the Joyce. It didn't bother me as such, because there had been this unfortunate choice of material--they have to go on and be troupers in circumstances like that, but they did all seem curiously very 'youngish'. I haven't noticed it at NYCBallet recently as such, though, even in crummy material like the divertissements in 'Swan Lake' (maybe the Russians are pretty hammy and turn it into a burlesque, but that's not for kids, or even adults, maybe, we used to call that 'adult entertainment'--on second thought, that might be one form of 'putting on a show' just like Rothbarts' idiot=looking sci-fi capes)--those divertissements, even the pas de quatre, are just boring, not so much infantile. You think they'll never end in Peter Martins's production, all flat and moribund.

Plenty of ugliness in the costumes, but mainly sense of smallness and sterility. I didn't find the corps dancing bad at all, I've seen much worse at ABT. And the orchestra was in good form some of the time, with at least two big messes (not just French horn problems) and plenty of uninspired moments. I was expecting very little, so I can't say I was ever pleasantly surprised, except by occasional fine dancing that was maybe breathtaking for a minute or two courtesy of Ms. Reichlen. Classic Ballet--the costumes in the first act were ridiculous enough, what you might call 'Tropical Danish' = Miami/Los Angeles colours with some drab Swedish Queen big dress thing, but if you'd stayed the Russian dance costumes were the most appalling: You have this shirtless dancer with a Roman Centurion-looking skirt or kilt, and boots that from a distance look like something one of the red-faced bagpipe players would wear in the St. Patrick's Day Parade (but they came across not as boots even, but rather shoes and socks like some old perv might have on--he looked quite fat, which was somewhat amusing. The girl has on this skimpy weird thing I couldn't fully make out, but reminded me of old LP's of Middle Eastern Exotic Dancers--it looked quite cheesay and even a bit obscene from a distance. Even so, it could have had some electric moments if the principals could have delivered all the way. Mearns was always beautiful, and this it the third time I've seen her--I always think of her as sweet and lovable, is that correct? But I much preferred her as Lilac Fairy and Dewdrop, because although her Odette was lovable, so was her Odile. My companion didn't agree with me on this, but I just can't see Mearns as knowing much about meanness and viciousness, which is why she was so convincing a Lilac Fairy. You are not so supposed to love Odile except for the wrong, false and evil reasons--and I couldn't see Mearns knowing how to be the sleek, sophisticated Party Girl that Odile is (and that that opening music announces. But she was hardly the problem. And that was Jared Angle, who one might say 'has no Prince to speak of' in terms of presence. He's said to be a fine partner, but that's not enough. A 'cautious prince' is just not a prince. He has to be swashbuckling at least at moments, and he always kept reminding me of some of the currently fashionable 'flaccid male fiction writers' and their novels, such as Peter Handke's new rendering of Don Giovanni--a contradiction in terms. His grand pirouettes (I think that's what they're called) after Odile's fouettes, were very good and solid, though, and that was the only time I thought he came to life. In conversation later, I was remembering Nureyev and Peter Schaufuss as Siegfried, and Jared Angle just didn't even seem to be dancing the same part (no matter what Martins has done to change the Prince, and indeed that is generally thought to be inferior). I think with a partner with some passion, Mearns would have been, at least as Odette, electrifying at times, and she was even a pleasure to watch as it was. But it was frankly hard to see how he was a Principal Dancer, at least from this role. I can see him as nice in 'Emeralds', maybe. He just has no fire, just sort of seems to be there, having wandered onstage somehow, seeming a bit lost amid all that royal mess. The one truly mesmerizing moment was Tess Reichlen in the pas de quatre. So that, although I don't know if I think this is that much worse (but not much better) than R + J, at least Sterling Hyltin had a really sparkling partner in Robert Fairchild, and I think Mearns would maybe have been exciting as Odette with someone less dainty and careful all the time, although I stll can't see her as Odile. My friend liked her Odile though. I guess I might put it as Prince Siegfried might be enough as a consort, but not just as an escort. And he never had any presence with his buddies either--they all had more flexibility and energy even while being clad in these absurd colours--I couldn't stand the weird muted green of the Pas de Quatre either, but Reichlen proved that the costumes really aren't that important if you've got that kind of talent that she does. I was told that Daniel Ullbricht as the Jester (in another hideous costume, which reminded me of the morbid costumes Bob Fosse used in 'All that Jazz') is not so musical, but for this part, he had some technique. So, for me, not so much the extreme ugliness that many have described, but rather a tedium and flatness for the most part. Still, a move virile Siegfried could have done a lot to relieve that.

I’ll have to read the White Album again -- it always is checked out or missing at the library. The house on Franklin may have been Preston Sturges’ -- big perhaps in comparison to the little guest house where a gardener friend used to live - or big in comparision to the little cottages on surrounding streets called exotically Heliotrope or Poinsettia. Joan Didion seems both to want to throw herself into the sixties and yet stay aloof. Too bad there isn’t mbourbon1ore about Janis Joplin (though there’s the nice detail about her ordering Benedictine & Brandy) or Morrison. Interesting that both Didion and Elizabeth Bishop interviewed Kathleen Cleaver in San Francisco, bodyguards and security and all. Pretty sure it wasn't, although across the street the house she described as having been lived in 'by one of the Talmadge sisters' is still there too. She talks about the house again, but less mysteriously, in 'Where I Was From', which I thought excellent, but searing in the part about Lakewood (which I then went to see in late 2003. Lakewood does feel almost like a ghost town with the loss of McDonell Douglas, which is what the story is, it's only a Green Line stop or two away from the Watts Towers, which I'm crazy about.) Actually, that first long essay is still steeped in what she referred to as her 'bad attitudes and wrongthink', although it comes across as very poetic. I find her extremely funny, one of those people who is funny naturally, often without knowing it. Since she's so physically tiny, the house may have seemed literally big, but those little cottages on Poinsettia do look like from sets of 40s movies--still. They're adorable, and are indeed smaller, but there's a diminutive look to this house, which has been well-renovated and nicely restored, even though it's two-story. But definitely small in comparison to not only the smallest ranch-style places on Canon Drive between, say, Sunset and Santa Monica, or those mini-manses on the residential part of Rodeo, and really anything above Sunset on Roxbury or Rexford, etc.. And I also remember some houses even on Franklin itself, and maybe Camino Palmero, which were considerably larger. Not small, but strangely compact and the only reason I mentiioned this was because it seemed something of a metaphor for her constant upset and 'staring at nothing' that she kept talking about, a real paranoia that was sometimes based on real threats, though. To such degree, that her babysitter told her she had a 'death aura'. Didion wrote 'we sat and chatted about why this might be so', which is pretty funny to me. I would have fired her. Yes, of course she would 'both to want to throw herself into the sixties and yet stay aloof.' How else cover the hippies in Haight-Ashbury without going nuts, as she describes having to take ups and gin to write 'Slouching Toward Bethlehem', but manages not to drop acid when offered, due to 'instability'. The page about the party is a brilliant prose-poem because it focusses on all the eccentricities of rock musicians (developed further in the one on the recording sessions of the Doors she went to): 'Musicians never wanted ordinary drinks', but always things like 'tequila neat' or 'champagne cocktails'. But also that they refused to ever keep bourgeois time at any cost, so she has those passages about 'first we must roll a cigarette, and we must have Vegetables Vindaloo' and 'many rum drinks' (who else would think to describe an obnoxious drunk like that?) and 'somebody would be going to the Montecito'. Actually, my 'memorization' is not perfect, but the details are still vivied, as in 'Chynna Phillips' when still a baby, things like that. But her aloofness is legend, and although when you meet her, she is exceptiionally warm and adorable, many of her detractors do constantly talk of 'snobbism', etc. But she really made that house on Franklin come to life, the way Chicken Delite guys would just walk in the door unnannounced. I've liked all of Didion's books, and have read them all, some several times, but 'The White Album' is one of my favourite of all books, and had a great influence on me. I think her last novel 'The Last Thing He Wanted' is the best of the novels, but after what she's been through with the loss of all her family, it often seems unlikely she'll ever write another novel. Although we'll get the occasional NYReview of Books piece. I've been to five readings, from about 1998 through 2005, and her reading is funny too; she reads all of her texts in a monotones, as if she's bored to death with them.

All very interesting, miliosr, and many pieces I'd never heard of. I realize I've never seen one of Sokolow's pieces, but I did have a pianist friend who worked with her for some years in either the late 70s or early 80s, and did describe the bleakness of the works as you do. He was a real believer in her work. I do remember meeting her very briefly way back in 1971, with a dancer-friend just right on the street, and she was a lovely lady.

Yes, that's right about Yale U., although I think 'Calcium Night Light' is funny. I did some research on Ives in 2002 when I finally played the Concord Sonata. Once I mastered the piece, I fully indulged in the way I truly feel about Ives: I hate the music, and I don't like anybody's ballets to it. That's what I jokingly called Peter's ballet 'Calcium Lite Nite', because I don't care for that either. I'm really astonished how any choreographers take him seriously (including Balanchine), given that there is so much more obviously danceably energetic work by Boulez, Stockhausen, and I'd still like to see Pithoprakta, to music of Xennakis. There's Balanchine's Pithoprakta at Suzanne Farrell Ballet here a couple of years ago. I had wanted to get to that. This is off-topic, sorry, I just have never understood the attraction of choreographers to that self-righteous, disapproving Puritan (not that it didn't take me decades to get over him either). I'm going to look up the paragraph I wrote up back in 2002, or what it was based on. Okay, this fills one in on this first piece that put Peter on the map as a choreographer. I don't really dislike it, but I don't like it all that much either: It is one of his Cartoons or Take-Offs and is scored for piccolo, clarinet, cornet, trombone, bass drum, and two pianos (four players). (This instrumentation can be expanded by using extra instruments suggested by Ives in a memo in the manuscript.) In 1912 or 1913 Ives grouped Calcium Light Night with five other pieces to make Set No. 1 for chamber ensemble. The piece pictures an event that occurs on the campus of Yale University that is well-described by W.E. Decrow in his book, Yale and the “City of Elms” (Wright and Potter Printing Co., Boston 1882, pp. 35–36): “Delta Kappa Epsilon, .., like its rival, Psi Upsilon, chooses about forty members from each junior class and gives out its elections in precisely the way stated in the article describing Psi Upsilon hall...” “Psi Upsilon at Yale is a junior society, and about forty members of every junior class are elected to membership in the organization. Meetings are held on the Tuesday evenings in term time, and the elections are given out two or three weeks before Commencement. On that occasion the members form in line two deep, and, preceded by a calcium light borne on a wooden frame by four members of the society, march around to and visit various rooms, in each of which a certain number of men pledged to join the society are awaiting their coming. The procession files through the room, each member shaking hands with each candidate, and receiving, on marching out again, two or three fine cigars, presented by the newly-elected members. The other junior society, Delta Kappa Epsilon, is always out on the same mission, under precisely similar circumstances. Accident or design, or both, always cause the two processions to pass each other several times during the evening, and each, singing its own society song, attempts to the best of its ability to drown the voices of the other. It is always done with the utmost good nature, and both sides enjoy it heartily, as do the numerous spectators....” The main themes of the piece are the society tunes "And again we sing thy praises, Psi U., Psi U.!" and "A band of brothers in D.K.E., we march along tonight." The tunes begin quietly and slowly and build to a raucuous climax as the two groups of students cross each others' paths, and then retreat back to the way they began in a sort of leap-frog retrogression. I hope to offer my rave review of the current Swan Lake soon, although this is not certain.

You didn't see the PBS broadcast? Well, it was AWFUL, even thought Sterling Hyltin was divine despite all. Someone else told me Swan Lake was somewhere in between the badness of R PLUS J and the excellence of his Sleeping Beauty. But I will have to tell you later about that. I do know that Sleeping Beauty really is a fine piece, even with that often-inferior orchestra, but R PLUS J, forget it. If you have to see it, try to get a video, it's not worth 'filling a seat' for. Yes, well so does the Burger King Sleeping Beauty. And he does not fill seats with anything of his own work except Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. Do you know anybody who flies in from the West Coast to see 'Friandises' or 'Songs of the Auvergne' or 'Calcium Lite Nite?' (I know, I know, it's 'Light' and 'Night') Yes, most of us do not like much of Peter Martins's work, and we may say so freely. Yes, they have seen it, even if not this time around. It was done in 2004, and I know a LOT of people who saw it and they all hated it. [sic]

Pretty good, and probably doesn't lead to Georgia O'Keeffe's 'I just think New York's wonderful It makes all the European cities look like villages'. My sentiments exactly, and I consider it a poem even if she didn't. Which then reminds me, though may not lead elegantly, as with Quiggin's, to Joan Didion's 'New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself.' Didion wrote a marvelous essay in 'The White Album' on o'Keeffe's evening star that she used for a number of water colours. They are two of a kind, but I don't know if they lead to each other. With the 'don't tread on me' attitude firmly entrenched in either, they might not like the idea. I don't even know if they met. I've memorized parts of 'The White Album', especially the page about the party that Janis Joplin came to 'at the big house on Franklin Avenue', so I'm reading these again in my mind right now. The opening long essay says that the 'big house' would be demolished (this was written in the late 60s or 70s), but it wasn't, because I've been to it. I asked her about it at a reading and she told me it was still there and gave me the number afterward. It still had panel trucks that scared her to the point of writing down their license plate numbers and storing them in a drawer, but I didn't think the house was that big.

Classic Ballet--oh lord, I haven't seen it yet, but I think I know why someone once told me 'it has to be seen to be believed', if your (hilarious, if unfortunate) report is accurate (I have no reason to doubt it).

I don't find Guillem especially musical, and certainly the clips of her Aurora are very hard and cold and gymnastic themselves. And her balances are 'perfect' like Sizova's and Bouder's without having any of the resonance-you should be able to 'hear' a dancer's musicality, as with Sizova Bouder, Fonteyn, and Farrell. If the long limbs of Somova are ever gotten under control, she will be a great dancer, although I've got no reason to think that will happen. Guillem's body does not seem to extend beyond the object-body itself. it's just she can do difficult things easily. I don't think she has a thing to do with Aurora (she's just too severe), although wonderful in other things. she's a modern ballerina in an extreme sense of the term--very fine, but with her limits just like every other ballerina. Somova jas am amazing body, and if it were got under control, she could be the best; however, this needs intelligence of her own. Does she have that? I don't know, but do agree with Helene about what we saw at Kirov 2008 in 'Ballet Imperial'.

You are so right. I've never seen the like of that. It looks like a little slap she gives with her hand.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0176357/episodes You were right--and thanks! This has the list of all of them.

Yes, all of these are excellent, and I love Major Barbara, which I only saw last year. But I've never seen any of these onstage. I would think it would, people do like these Met HD's, even though I'm unable to get interested in them personally. But there are many TV remakes of almost all the classics, some every few years, like 'Turn of the Screw', there will be as many as a dozen for some of them going back to the past and into the future. You did remind me that, although I've never seen Phedre live, I have read it, and think the old French film from 1968 with Marie BelJ Jean Chevrier, Jacques Dacqmine, and Claude Girardl is wonderful. It is somewhat cinematic, but mostly looks like the play. Dirac's earlier remarks about early R & H explain how South Pacific and then The Sound of Music began to expand cinematically. South Pacific is my favourite of all R & H, but the location shooting doesn't quite turn it into a great film, although I like it anyway. I can see, though, why the Sound of Music is the best film of R & H, though, it's better technically. I still like 'Mary Poppins' much better though, and I'm almost sure it's because it seems mint-new, you get something you had never even heard on a cast album. As time has gone by, I only really treasure as films a very few B'way adaptations, even when I can see they're good, as compared to the ones made directly for the screen, as 'State Fair' (not the terrible remake.) But also see that I usually woudn't go to revivals of shows I'd seen films of, 'Gypsy' is the only revival I've ever been to, I think--except ones that weren't movies like 'Apple Tree' and '110 in the Shade'. That says something about the way film sticks in some of our heads (or it might--I just don't seem to want to see them usually after I've got the film imprinted in my head.) It's like, dirac can say 'Cabaret' is a marvelous movie, and I really don't think you have to have seen stage versions to make that decision. But then I'm not nearly the purist I used to be, if I ever was (I'm much more demanding of ballet orchestras being up to the standards of the dancers, about that I can go into a rage). Quiggin seems to be more so, as with the Tennesse Williams plays/movies, and surely with good reason. I'm actually startled I've seen so much more ballet than I have theater. I did play in the orchestra of 'No, No Nanette' here when Ruby Keeler was in it, but that's not something you really can compare with the Doris Day 'Tea for Two' movie, being pretty much before the book musical. Wait, there are two old versions from 30s and maybe 1940, but I haven't seen those, I think I'll look for them, as the 'Tea for Two' was indeed just a loose adaptation of the silly but fun material.

I can't remember anything but 'Cabaret' among musicals that I saw both on Broadway and on film. I've seen most shows in either just one or the other (onstage usually because they weren't made into films, like most of Sondheim's). And while the film was much celebrated, I much preferred the stage musical, which had much more the flavour of an intimate cabaret. Michael York was the chief improvement. I'm also the only believer in Jill Haworth as Sally Bowles, but that's life. Oh yes, a couple do come back. I did see 'Rent' in both forms, and loathed both. the movie definitely worse though. Also 'Gypsy' in revival in 2007 with Lupone, I preferred the movie even though she was great. 'Hairspray' made a better movie (though nothing special), although it was all right for an evening's entertainment at the theater, because material is mediocre to begin with, and some stars helped it out. That's interesting info on the early R & H musicals, dirac. They do rather look like that, and are satisfying as such, at least for one viewing, because the material is good and the songs well-sung. I haven't put any Shakespeare here, because that probably doesn't make sense. Have only seen a couple onscreen anyway. Are there good films of 'Hedda Gabler' and 'A Doll's House'? I've seen fine productions, the Hedda in London with Maggie Smith (Olivier/Bergman) magnificent, but also good 'Doll's House' here with Claire Bloom. Also, is there a good 'School for Scandal?' I saw excellent production of that in LA in 2004. Good 'Arms and the Man' on B'way 1985 w/Kevin Kline, is there a comparable movie? Think 'Member of the Wedding' with Julie Harris and Ethel Waters is better than the original play versions I've seen.

This is interesting, because I now begin to think that the balances and the fouettes of Odile are this odd matter of whether they should be subordinate (or whether they really are not quite integrated, and are separated off) to the rest of the pas or be the focus, in fact be quite competitive. It's more subtle to want to see these difficult technical feats subsumed to the drama, but they are definitely there for showing off, and to some degree, not in the most high-minded way. I think it works both ways, and is like pianists doing the Chopin Double-Thirds Etude flawlessly and 'like velvet' but somewhat automaton-like, or those who play it with 'more dynamic colouring and poetry' but miss notes and make slight messes. I'd like to say I find myself in Michael's camp on this one, but I think I'm not. If balanchinette is correct about this: , then I can sympathize with the nerves, but these balances are literally framed to be a kind of separate 'testing moment', in which everything else seems to stop, and the drum rolls only intensify this almost militaristic demand that is being made. So if I see the hand rushing back down again, I'm always disappointed, since I know that others are able to do them with much more confidence. There really are some pieces of music and dance that are meant to display as a kind of exhibitionism. That's why Nureyev was so good at 'Le Corsaire'. Of course, Corsaire and SB are not comparable works, but maybe these extreme virtuoso parts within SB and SL are really much the same. They have to be poetic and part of the whole, but they're athletic as well, and once you've seen the nonchalance of Sizova and Bouder with these balances, it's hard for some of us to accept less, although I mean only in terms of those, not what else the ballerina may do in the same performance inthe rest of the piece. Are you speaking of the king? Louis Quatorze, that is. I think Olivier Bernier feels that way about him (in his lectures at the Met, where he does get a bit excited), and I've annoyed any number of people for admirning him myself but it wasn't usually for those reasons, and he never reminded me of the Lilac Fairy in any way. Unless there is another Sun King, of course.

Hey, that's interesting, and maybe why, generally, musicals made for the screen like 'Singin' in the Rain' are usually considered by critics to be greater than adaptations of Broadway musicals. I'd like to think that it also may be why I seem to be nearly alone in thinking Kelly's 'Hello, Dolly!' is one of the very best film adaptations of a Broadway musical ever made. Most do agree that 'Call Me Madam' is as good or better than the original (also with Merman), but that's beside the point here, since it wasn't made by Kelly, and probably is a fluke. But this could explain why the Broadway musical films don't seem to have something fresh in the way that even silly baubles made directly for the screen do--this stage-time thing. But you know much more about Williams onstage than I do, and my affection for 'Iguana' could be because of never having seen it onstage, at least to some degree. And it is true that I did prefer the 'Streetcar' I saw onstage to the two fine versions on film, but I wouldn't know if that's why. I may just not understand Blanche Dubois very well, and may well have liked Rosemary Harris's Blanche just because I think Rosemary is so thrilling an actress (I once heard her do this soliloquy of Lady Teazle at a benefit, and it was one of the most wonderful things I ever saw.)

But I wasn't asking not for that, just because I asked another different question; because I think that's part of all this. In fact, if it's a literally 'phototgraphed play', like the movies of Graham's 'App. Spring' and 'Night Journey', that's another slight difference. The 'Choreography by Balanchine' series and 'Dance in America' series might be exactly like this perf. of 'True West', in that they don't do much except angles and closeups, etc., but in both cases you are getting the exact replica, with some camera play, of what is seen onstage. So, in a sense, you have the play to judge from in one of these kinds of films or televised plays, against the changes that are always made in film--no, that's not right either, because the 50s Graham dance-films were really films but changed only what Graham herself had changed from an early 40s film in the choreography. I remember some old PBS plays of Harold Pinter and Albee (I think) and others in a series, which were also mostly a kind of 'filmed play', I think there was 'Celebration' or maybe 'The Birthday Party', and these were made to look more like film than television, whereas I think I remember our 'True West' 'looked like television'. But I think all these cases have to do with 16mm or 35mm or something someone else will know, so that you get a sensation of film in some (as in the old Graham films) and of television in others (including several on 'Martha Graham Dance Company'), but that they are still both exact replicas of their stage originals. Of course, 'Hill Street Blues' and much other TV has been filmed in 16mm, so it's by now gotten too complicated for me to keep up with. If it's literally a 'photographed play or dance', you still have the text of the original to compare with a 'real film', which always would alter, no matter the camera. Then there are 'television musicals', of course, like 'Gypsy' with Bette Midler, which doesn't resemble the movie of that, and may be closer to the stage version than the movie was (which was very cinematized), but you can tell by the look of the Midler one that it could never be shown onscreen. Maybe somebody has seen the Willis/Smith version and will know if it's been 'cinematized' somewhat. Actually a bit surprised that a full feature version of 'True West' hasn't been done.

Yes, it did. Was it a real film? I wasn't sure. I thought it was more a 'filmed play' in the literal sense, unlike 'Glengarry Glen Ross', which was a real film, but little 'cinematization' was done. Dirac? There's some difference, isn't there? My impression of the 'True West', if it's the Malkovich/Sinise one, was just that they photographed the play more or less as is. Just looked that up, you might mean the 2002 Bruce Willis/Chad Smith TV 'True West', which I didn't see.

Thanks for making the new post, dirac. I'm going to see if I can think of some, this will be fun. I do now recall, when talking to kfw about finally remembering that I read 'Night of the Iguana' in high school, that I also read 'Baby Doll', but in that case it was maybe 30 years or more before I finally saw the film, and so can't make a comment on that. It was at about the same time I read 'Night of the Iguana' which I at least remember a little, but that points to how the film's images make me remember fragments of text. Oh well, I think I love the film of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' almost better than anything, as is probably patently obvious. This one http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091262/ was an important one for TV, with names like MacCowen and Plowright, but I didn't think it was worth much. Right now, I'm remembering that I saw the closing nght of the original 'Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' with Zoe Caldwell, and thought nothing could be more perfect of that kind. Then I saw the film, and liked it still more because Maggie Smith is equally eccentric, but it's more subtle and less stylized. But it's been too long ago for me to make comment on the play as it changed from stage to screen.

Yes, and although there are many examples, one of the most glaringly obvious, which looks like a filmed version of a televised play is 'Glengarry Glen Ross', which I enjoyed despite this total absence of the cinematic. Surely because of the performances, Pacino and Lemmon especially good, but so are all the others too. Not that I know how it should have been filmed. Was this the best way for those of use who didn't see it onstage. Definitely a cut above just a televised live performance of a play. What's an example of a play that went to the screen and seemed both like the play and also seemed like a real movie? Is 'The Importance of Being Earnest' a good example'? Maybe so, because it's so 'naturally artificial' that you need the sense of staginess even on film. I realize I've seen very little Williams onstage, maybe only 'Streetcar', with Rosemary Harris at the old Vivian Beaumont, and I preferred this to either of the film and/or TV versions I've seen (Leigh/Brando/Hunter and Ann-Margret/Treat Williams/d'Angelo, although I liked both of those as well.

Quiggin, this is not in the review that I found from bart's link. Are you somehow accessing a more lengthy version? or talking about another review? It speaks of her 'flaming red hair' and ''unbuttoned blouse', but I don't see the part about looking at the audience. I am sure she was fascinating no matter what she did, but that was the age when she was also doing 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane', so the emphasis would be all on the 'maternal matronly', and make it a different character from what Gardner did, because however obviously middle-aged, was still beautiful. Davis is pretty IMO only in her 30s/40s movies (and beautiful in a way in 'All About Eve'), not that that's important to my appreciation of her, but rather that Gardner still had sensuality that was more than just maternal (she had both maternal and 'same-age'). Can't say I agree that the cinematic expansions in these films are nearly all 'filler and waste'. In some cases, surely, but I like very much those beach scenes in 'Iguana', and think they're very potent, and the Maxine/beach boy one even rather musical.

bart--finally read the old NYT review, thanks for linking. Odd review, wasn't it? Said so little about the actors. I can imagine Margaret Leighton was superb, though, she always was in everything, and Hannah would be as ideal for her as for Kerr. Almost nothing about Bette Davis, could hardly believe it (even spelled it 'David'). Interesting also that Patrick O'Neal had such an early important part, since we usually think of him as a smaller actor as time went by, although often good in some of the pulp he did, and attractive. The 'non-explosiveness' was interesting, though, because there really is some in the movie.

Yes, I'd momentarily forgotten that, Miss Fellowes says something like 'What have you been doing, spawning?' And she was not pleased with Shannon's 'couture'.

Think so, not sure. I'm pretty sure he does go on about that, although don't remember the term 'spook' as such. I only remember the second one, the guy who asks her to take off a piece of her clothing and hand ti to him, so he could 'hold it, just hold it'. Always very touching, because Kerr is so fantastic in this part, and can pull it off. I doubt anyone else could have, and even so, I must say I think of those lines with some amusement. Yes, I too had looked up the B'way version with Bette Davis, and I've never heard of anybody saying anything about it, but Davis specialists can surely tell us something. Kfw, that was terrific, thanks for the extra labour. So they did do some of what I called 'cinematic expansion', and the beach boys with Maxine was superb, and Ava just marvelous all the way through that film. I also remember liking Hannah telling Shannon that 'are you so SURE?' [that 'Maxine is so tough'] after he's been cruel to her whom he cares deeply about, and been forgiving of the horrid Miss Fellowes (and that is some perf. too, by Grayson Hall.) I think the movie is great, and I'm going to try to find the name of the story. Yes, it's the same title, I don't know why I didn't remember, but that I don't remember too well, even though I read it about 2001. Some of his short stories are wonderful, 'Desire and the Black Masseur' may be the most famous, and God knows it's harrowing and even very upsetting, but profound. There was a French film based on this latter story. Yes, it was called 'Noir et Blanc', from 1986, and is nearly impossible to find, I don't even know how I saw it. Cristian: if interested, here is a long study of both 'Suddenly Last Summer' and 'Desire and the Black Masseur', both concerned with 'devouring' and, in the latter, cannibalism. I found the movie upsetting, but somehow Williams's story I thought even more so: http://www.rtjournal.org/vol_4/no_2/4_2_pdf/bak.pdf

Yes and no. The spectator can enter into the work (there's Roland Barthes's whole 'reading and writing' melding), but he'd also be dancing or choreographing or writing or composing instead of the one who is if he could. I think a good way of looking at it is that, even if a dancer says 'I'm not a spectator', that's not quite true either. To some degree, if s/he is not also the choreographer, s/he doesn't quite own everything about the work first before presenting it to others to be communicated and seen and sometimes understood (and even very well.) A Balanchine dancer knows more in some basic ways by a long shot than anyone watching it, otherwise the physicality wouldn't count; but s/he does not know more than the choreographer until some new creation is brought to the performance that even the choreographer hadn't thought about, and that did happen with Suzanne Farrell, and was meant to. But Martha Graham was even more in ownership of the pieces of hers she danced, even though she was not as technically accomplished a dancer as a prima ballerina. Same with music, to go back innopac's remark of 'not being able to imagine a musician saying this'. But yes, they do. Mozart sounds so simple when you listen to it or even play, yet neither performer nor listener has any clue whatsoever to writing that 'simple-sounding music' (I'm mainly referring to the happier sounding Mozart for purposes of illustration.) I think this is pretty obvious, really, but do agree with dirac that it is applicable to 'all forms of endeavour': You're not inside it all the way as a spectator. Quiggin is right about 'in their bones' (and muscles, of course, as well), but this is equally true of all performers. They do all know something that the audience doesn't know (and they will also know things the choreographer or composer doesn't know if s/he can't dance it ouf fully). I'm a big fan of Suzaane Farrell, but that line 'I'm not a spectator' is pretty much throwaway, because everybody is also a spectator, and especially those who have performed and become teachers and also do watch performances themselves. Of course, she may have been referring to when she was dancing, and in that case, of course she's not a spectator, there's no time to be doing that as well while you're performing, which itself is way beyond rehearsing. It wouldn't even be presented to spectator/audiences if it weren't meant to be appreciated and understood up to the maximum level, which can sometimes stimulate great inspiration and illumination, in one's own art and life. But the ones closest to the art obviously know something about the works no one else does. The thing I least understand that is discussed here is that it would be any different with a ballet dancer from any other kind of performer. Actors know they have the job because they can do it, but while they want their audience to enjoy it, they also know they have secrets to their art that the audience can never know, not because they'd go out and become stars themselves and be competitive (of course this does happen literally, but that's another matter), but because they can't know these secrets. A pianist or opera singer is the same: They are more imbued with the work (if they are inspired and really good) than the most avid one of their listeners--but less than the creators of the work, unless they happen to be the same artist. To think otherwise is not to give them their due, and this sort of thing is not about democracy. The spectators and audience are generally quite grateful enough to just be able to enjoy the works and enter into them as deeply as they can (which can be considerably deep, of course.) It goes without saying that, if the performers don't know and experience something more deeply than their audience, the audience wouldn't even be there.

Ob yes, and that was perhaps my main point, the 'taking cues from the dancers'. One of the worst moments was all of the Carabosse, with music that sounded like a cartoon version, and no menace to speak of. I couldn't believe it, it was so reduced. But you are right about the out-of-sync moments, and I just didn't think it was the dancers' fault. And while I like Helene's descriptions both of what she heard here and in Seattle, which does point to much better results down the line, it's definitely more than just acoustical re-orientation. I'm going to report back after hearing Kaplow conduct next week, and see if I'm hearing some of the same problems.