papeetepatrick

That's an elegant way of saying it, and probably bart and I were saying, in talking about McGoohan, that we don't find that quite as important as 'following your own path', and a critic (nor anybody else, for that matter), will be able to talk about the 'career matching the talent', but is not 'in the skin' of the artist to know what the digression off into a separate kind of path could be. It's like Gelsey's career, of course, which is not to my mind lesser for having been in a state of chaos at one point, nor Monroe's, for having been in a state of chaos at all points. And Streisand has always been stable, but she seems much more ordinary than she did when young and bursting with potency. Just throwing out a few other versions along the lines of 'career types', and Streisand's careful cultivation of hers has not IMO made it continue to have magic, it's become prosaic. But the worst is that I loved 'Portrait of Jennie' and 'Love Letters' on Late Shows when I was in high school, Ethel Barrymore and all of it; and all I can say is thank God I saw the light....you'll find it even worse that I also loved 'Ruby Gentry' and 'Love Is a Many-Splendoured Thing', but I do have to disagree on 'Beat the Devil', which is where my total distaste hardened, and realized that she was born for board meetings of Norton Simon, probably sort of like Cindy McCain's presence in the family businesses, though I don't know that for a fact. I thought she sounded as though she was having to acclimate herself to ill-fitting dentures.

Thank you, Cristian. She's one of the most singularly beautiful dancers, as we all know--and certainly here as well. What I liked in the commentary was Dowell pointing out the superb proportions of the body itself, which I think one always noticed but it wasn't quite conscious for me how important that was till he mentioned it--and I think he said that that was why she had few injuries, and probably also has to do with the opening remarks about her consistency of performance.

I agree with your other version of this, regarding someone like Montalban, when it has to do with the era itself, i.e., when someone is not in the right one for him/her to flourish as fully as he would naturally otherwise; and Montalban's presence was always welcome--even as it was, he had a very successful career. This applies to lots of actors, I'd think, from Betty Hutton to Martha Scott, to even Charlotte Rampling maybe. I probably think that, given Welles's prodigious achievements, it's a bit like resenting Mozart for having died young, or Martha Graham for 'Maple Leaf Rag' at the age of 96 not being as groundbreaking as 'Primitive Mysteries'; he just achieved too much IMO for me to think he 'should have done more'. The idea of 'not realizing one's artistic potential' makes me think of some of my own favourites, like Ava Gardner, who was a big star and sometimes turned in great performances, but sometimes really did just 'phone in' and could be very lazy, but...on the other hand, just being Ava Gardner was plenty accomplishment, so I guess I just don't demand that gifted people always be blue ribbon. It's true that Edith Evans always was, and Olivier and Garbo mostly, but that's not even the part I most value about even those, which is just whatever individual performances are really good. Now maybe you can tell me if I'm totally wrong about Jennifer Jones, who I can't stand in anything!

The original cast of 'The Age of Anxiety', Robbins's ballet to Bernstein's wonderful 2nd Symphony based on the Auden poem was Tanaquil LeClercq, Francisco Moncion, Todd Bolender, and Jerome Robbins. The synopsis in the earliest Balanchine 'Stories of the Great Ballets' has much that is fascinating and it was very well-received. All the more bewildering that it has been left to moulder. As in the poem, we have the 7 Ages and the 7 Stages. For example, "the sixth age shows us a reaction to this superhuman condition--disillusionment, a brief effort to rise above it, a danced argument as to which is better: to give in to the determinism of the city or to fight against it fearlessly. The four strangers spklit into two groups and take these differing points of view." In the 7 Stages there is 'The Masque': "The exhausted girl falls against one of the boys. There is silence for a moment. Then carefree music blazes out. The music simulates jazz, and the four characters cavort about the scene forgetting their problem in playful versions of jive. But soon their vigorous efforts to be cheerful begin to pall. One of them stops dancing and stomps in raging despair: it is the kind of protest of the half-intoxicated, the man who knew that drink would solve nothing at all. The girl curls up on the ground." Bernstein said of his piece "If the charge of theatricality in a symphonic work is a valid one, I am willing to plead guilty. I had a deep suspicion that every work I write, for whatever medium is really theatre music in some way." Robbins, in pointing out the differences his ballet has from the poem and symphony: "It is a ritual in which four people exercise their illusions in their search for security. It is an attempt to see what life is about." John Martin said "If you are interested in seeing one of the most sensitive and deeply creative talents in the choreographic field at work, and tackling his most profound and provocative assignment with uncompromising vision, you will find the piece completely fascinating". Margaret Lloyd said: "because it reflects the tensions of our time, Age of Anxiety is a great and gripping ballet. Melissa Hayden, Nora Kaye, Hugh Laing, and Roy Tobias also appeared in these roles. The sounds of all these comments do sound different from anything we hear nowadays, and remind one of the kinds of lively-art goers of the sixties, and particularly the kind of theater reviews we used to read in various New York publications in particular. While there is a 'period feel' about all these quotes I've put, the piece is obviously as pertinent and timely as ever, but I can very clearly see that the kind of ferment which would continue to support this kind of piece is probably long gone. It must have been extraordinary to be at the first performance, and I wish I could imagine the sets a bit better than I can. The original poem is set in a 3rd Avenue bar, and the ballet in 'a public place in any part of a large modern city". I find this whole entry very touching and a bit melancholy. What surprised me was that it had been as successful in its critical reception, since few mention it anymore. While I'd like to see it revived, I do have a hard time imagining that it will be.

The original cast of 'The Age of Anxiety', Robbins's ballet to Bernstein's wonderful 2nd Symphony based on the Auden poem was Tanaquil LeClercq, Francisco Moncion, Todd Bolender, and Jerome Robbins. The synopsis in the earliest Balanchine 'Stories of the Great Ballets' has much that is fascinating and it was very well-received. All the more bewildering that it has been left to moulder. As in the poem, we have the 7 Ages and the 7 Stages. For example, "the sixth age shows us a reaction to this superhuman condition--disillusionment, a brief effort to rise above it, a danced argument as to which is better: to give in to the determinism of the city or to fight against it fearlessly. The four strangers spklit into two groups and take these differing points of view." In the 7 Stages there is 'The Masque': "The exhausted girl falls against one of the boys. There is silence for a moment. Then carefree music blazes out. The music simulates jazz, and the four characters cavort about the scene forgetting their problem in playful versions of jive. But soon their vigorous efforts to be cheerful begin to pall. One of them stops dancing and stomps in raging despair: it is the kind of protest of the half-intoxicated, the man who knew that drink would solve nothing at all. The girl curls up on the ground." Bernstein said of his piece "If the charge of theatricality in a symphonic work is a valid one, I am willing to plead guilty. I had a deep suspicion that every work I write, for whatever medium is really theatre music in some way." Robbins, in pointing out the differences his ballet has from the poem and symphony: "It is a ritual in which four people exercise their illusions in their search for security. It is an attempt to see what life is about." John Martin said "If you are interested in seeing one of the most sensitive and deeply creative talents in the choreographic field at work, and tackling his most profound and provocative assignment with uncompromising vision, you will find the piece completely fascinating". Margaret Lloyd said: "because it reflects the tensions of our time, Age of Anxiety is a great and gripping ballet. Melissa Hayden, Nora Kaye, Hugh Laing, and Roy Tobias also appeared in these roles. The sounds of all these comments do sound different from anything we hear nowadays, and remind one of the kinds of lively-art goers of the sixties, and particularly the kind of theater reviews we used to read in various New York publications in particular. While there is a 'period feel' about all these quotes I've put, the piece is obviously as pertinent and timely as ever, but I can very clearly see that the kind of ferment which would continue to support this kind of piece is probably long gone. It must have been extraordinary to be at the first performance, and I wish I could imagine the sets a bit better than I can. The original poem is set in a 3rd Avenue bar, and the ballet in 'a public place in any part of a large modern city". I find this whole entry very touching and a bit melancholy. What surprised me was that it had been as successful in its critical reception, since few mention it anymore. While I'd like to see it revived, I do have a hard time imagining that it will be. I made a separate post for this, on the off-chance someone reading about this will have seen it, can remember it, and tell us about it. http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...mp;#entry240029

Totally agree, and surely he was doing that. Lots of people who are neither stars nor following their own path think that somebody else should, however, have 'known to go ahead and be a star.' So look at some of the people who are now called stars in Hollywood--it's often appalling. Another mistake is to think that the combination which produces both a star and a 'follower of his own path' is obviously the best combination. But that doesn't follow either, because art is just not that simple. All sorts of other people talk about how Orson Welles didn't fully realize his potential. It's as if they needed it to be in a somewhat more conventional order so that the genius were pre-arranged for the recipient, as it were, step-by-step. That's because sometimes it does work out in this very orderly way, of course, but that's not reason enough to think that that way is the 'most ideal' version.

A few years ago I got the LP off eBay of 'Jamaica', the old Arlen show with Lena Horne, who is one of the few really old show biz musician loves of mine still with us, and Montalban. I didn't even know he'd done Broadway till I got the album.

That's all right, but this thread is two-pronged. We've had many about various kinds of disturbances at performances, and littering can be included. That is not all that this one is about. I think what Farrell Fan and I are on to is that the second 'prong' is that 'beautiful ballerinas' acted like common wenches and that, on further delving, we find that a male dancer has gotten 'bad publicity' for something he was at least to some degree possibly at fault (I realize the tip-toe nature of these things and it is galling sometimes.) There was another dancer in his car and I recall that the outcome left Ramasar (or however you spell it) as being somehow more legally culpable. But Nilas became a 'good person' upon holding the door for someone, and the beautiful ballerinas 'lost their beauty' by what is by any measure a minor infraction--whereas in the other a possible felony was involved. I can't speak for Farrell Fan, but to me that is what is annoying and trivial about this: I agree with kfw, cristian, and hans about the LITTERING IN GENERAL, and however you want to tell them about their littering or talking or text-messaging--discipline them if you want. And do the same thing for 'beautiful ballerinas' and dancers who get to do Apollo without being able to. But don't judge them on such a purely superficial basis--that they did or did not follow all the rules of Louis XIV's court--in which case they were either banished to the provinces (poor mistreated Nilas Martins got 'sent down' to...Manhattan...) or allowed to remain courtesans of the New York State Theater while committing high crimes and misdemeanours. 'Exiled from Saratoga' is gonna knock everything else off the best-seller lists.

I am now a Farrell Fan Fan.

Especially if the 'polite' one in life is also never the brilliant one onstage. I've no reason to think Hubbe wouldn't hold the door, though, so there need not always be trumping involved, or perhaps it can be doubled?

It ends up being about what is classy as determining things like 'he is a good person'. My impression is that Farrell Fan was right, although I didn't originally think so. Obviously, Nilas Martins may or may not be a 'good person', but he cannot have been for having been a minor celeb who held the door for someone. This does not even mean he was 'classy'. Of course it explains the negative reaction to the candy wrappers, but not that the ballerinas needed any kind of reproof. They were probably corps dancers below the age of 20 who spend a lot of time in trendy clubs, where the role models are spoiled and do whatever they want. The Nilas Martins case is here described as a matter of 'bad publicity received'. The case was discussed extensively here at Ballet Talk just after his arrest, and so what has to then be pointed to is the case itself as being of at least relatively much greater importance (however small a case), as it existed in a real sense within the justice system, to superficial politeness (which is important, but not so important without including the larger context--which has been here described and reduced to 'bad publicity' and 'exiled from Saratoga'; and this is totally misleading to anyone who doesn't know what happened in the actual case). I don't think ballet is within its own members a matter of one required exquisite movement after another. Ballet dancers go back into their own personalities as people the minute they get offstage, and become concerned with mundane things, physical pains, etc., that have to do with them as people, not continuing the 'glorious illusion',i.e., they have all just been sweating, probably even the ones who say they don't have done so, or paid some kind of health price for not ever sweating. I don't think they should be expected to watch their every move when they are in an audience--a few prima ballerinas would do so, but otherwise they should not be held to the standards of the queen of England when out in the general public. Actors often complain about this kind of expectation from fans, and some of the biggest film stars who live in my neighborhood feel fine about dressing like slobs.

It is rather suspenseful, n'est-ce pas? Reminds of a review in The New Yorker about 1994 of Tom Jones new show he did in the East Village, called THE LEAD AND HOW TO SWING IT, which spawned an album or two. The ladies threw panties at Tom as they always have gone nuts by throwing keys or what have you. The writer of the demure little piece interviewed Tom afterwards and ended her piece with 'And what happens to all those panties?' Tom answered her 'I have no idea', given that it was obviously an attempt to make sure a new emphasis was made, and pointed out to the great man himself. Was this 'speaking truth to power?'. It most certainly was not. He knew exactly what she was up to, and she probably had to end the 'feature' there because he wasn't really interested in talking about her career or sexual preferences. She seemed to even disapprove of his having some champagne after the performance.

I didn't know his other work, but just 'The Prisoner' was enough for me. I was hypnotized by it as a child and never missed it. I thought it was amazing.

Oh Merde!! "Ay, carajo! " "Frickin'." Where did that come from, anyway? F------ + chicken? (Or is is "friggin'"?) It's 'friggin', which I like very much and use often. That's actually old, but I noticed both 'frikkin' and 'freakin' beggining to crop up about mid-90's. I hear these a lot everywhere, in the subways or stores, and they're even written a lot on the internet. Which reminds me, I don't really like any of the internet-born words and phrases that I can think of.

I love her YouTubes of 'Something Cool'--"A cigarette--well, I don't smoke them as a rule...but I'll have one...it would be fun--with SOMETHIN' COOL...." 'My Shining Hour' is good too, but the first has the great photo-montage. Her original name, Shirley Luster, is not so bad either (and there was another one between those two. I bet she was a character.)

Thanks so much, miliosr, and OH MY GOD. I don't whether it's the singular non-mellowness of the first weeks of January or just Creeping Dementia, but in trying to renew something at NYPL account called 'Three Modern Dance Classics', I find it's exactly the one--the original cast with Limon (my first time to see him dancing) and all else you've described, which I just watched now, immediately to flip over to your comment! Obviously, I ordered them at the same time and then paid no attention to what I was doing. The word 'claustrophobic' that you used was always on my mind while watching this, and you beat me to it. I was going to say "if anything, it needs as much claustrophobia as possible." An oceanfront view for the 'spaciousness', was it? I sort of want to re-check that oddity out again, because I had to keep reminding myself that it was the Kirov, first I just would look and think, well, they really aren't very interested in the piece, and all of as sudden you'd see this rigorous Kirov training in somebody's body which would make me remember it wasn't an amateur company (I think the Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet also have oceanfront views--agree that this kind of ca-ca kills it 'stone dead'...as though everything would automatically 'open up' if placed outdoors...) But this was wonderful, and I am quite happy I had it on my shelf. Beautiful, integrated dancing which is all about what Limon wanted--of course, how could it not be since he had total control of all of it. You could finally hear the Purcell too. I haven't yet watched 'The Traitor' and 'The Emperor Jones' yet, but will report back when I have. This has Moorish arches too, but it's exactly that unbearable closeness that it needs. Really no need to look for any other version, as this original 1956 cast is exactly what one wants to see, and it is an exemplary piece of ensemble. This one is a DVD I've got. While I was watching, I kept thinking 'somebody at BT will have written something about this by the time I finish watching it'. I heartily recommend it as well, this is the place to see Limon, and his spoken intro is very good too. Now I remember that I saw him at Juilliard in 1971, which would be a year before his death. Totally agree with this too, although I liked the particular kind of simple grandeur in the 1956 film set as well, because everything felt very suffocating, with the lavish costumes making it only the more so. But I can easily see it with no set too. [am changing the title to include both versions, in order of which I saw them.]

Thanks, Richard and Mel. I imagine there are some much better versions of this, which is strange to say, given this is the Kirov. I can see that Joffrey would be better at this, though, and this tape looks like they are going through the motions most of the time. As I mentioned, brilliant flashes of dancing, but it never hung together, and I thought called for something more simple, rather than something that looked spectacular. Has anybody seen this tape? or dvd (if any)? Mel, had you spectacular sets like this, or was it simple so it would stay reasonably pure in scale with the music and dancing? I thought these gazebo affairs and pier scenes very bloated for the kind of basically simple movements that were going on--first impression was that it could have done with the most minimalist kind of set. I can see what you meant by too much meditation, and in that case that's probably why it seemed as though it needed to be a lot crisper and maybe even faster throughout.

Perhaps someone can enlighten me on this. I missed the recent Limon Co. engagement at the Joyce and wanted to see something of his work. I believe I saw a small work once done for part of Juilliard Dance Dept. and he was on stage at the time, but dancers I was with said it wasn't his best work. Now this (to me) odd tape has 3 Shakespeare pieces, including 'The Moor's Pavane'. The others are Rizhenko/Tchaikovsky 'Hamlet' and 'Romeo and Juliet', neither of which I've yet watched. I did watch the Limon once, and was not quite enthralled. I'd like to hear from someone who knows this piece well. I'd keep noticing brilliant dancing in itself, as it were, but didn't find that my first impression was that this was probably the right kind of performance of this work, that I basically still haven't seen it. This is an old vhs from 1990 from NYPL and the back says 'filmed on location at a spectacular medieval castle overlooking the sea', but I strongly felt that I'd rather see it done on a stage. Once in a while it would grab my attention, but mostly it didn't seem to hang together, and I have a feeling that it was this filming and performance, even though it's Kirov dancers Andres Williams, Nikita Dolgushin, Svetlana Semenova, and Gabriella Komleva (I know none of these names, and the year of filming may be some years ealier, I don't know.) It says it's Limon's most famous work, and certainly I've long heard of it, but there may be a better way to view this--some of the 'seaside' filming is not impressive to my taste, some of it looks like it's on a pier, some inside this large gazebo-like structure. Alas.

Doubt that I'm going to be a big Ailey fan, on the other hand tonight's program had no actual Ailey piece in it. But 'Suite Otis' delivered what I was looking for to an entertaining degree, in a kind of Broadway way, makes you think of Bob Fosse too. I'd gone for 'Go in Grace', which has the a capella Sweet Honey on the Rocks doing simple movement (and very nicely) as well as singing beautifully and interacting with the dancers; this is imaginative, but I thought the piece could have easily been made into something great, or considerably better. None of the dancing by the real dancers was that extraordinary, and I didn't really find any of the songs so beautiful either, although they sing well. I kept thinking some instrumental accompaniment would not have hurt, but I guess they don't do that. Had good moments, though, and for musicians and other performers on stage together, it sure beat that production of 'Company' with saxophone players who had to, but could not, also act. kind of thing that needed opening up more, like the big sexy dancing in 'Suite Otis', and it never really did. I've gone backward, since I nearly left after 'Festa Barocca', which I found to be one of the trashiest things I've ever seen, good athletic movement to the cheapest effect. I don't even especially revere Handel among great masters, but they could have used the Collected Hits of the Silver Convention, for all the 'baroque' you got. It was the nightmare-dream-ballet for me, and painful when you'd think of Balanchine's Concerto Barocco, but even Paul Taylor's Esplanada, most of which I don't care much for, comes to life in the last piece, when the leaps are so far they've gained in weight and the girl dancers are caught as if Rubens women--this is very cool. There's nothing cool in 'Festa Barocca', just a lot of squiggly, cutesey stuff. The first 'pas de deux' is in purple day-glo bathing suit for her and electric-aqua swim trunks for him. Gwynnen Taylor Jones was like some summer camp lifeguard. Lots of garish satin dresses for the women, but the men wore just the skirts and were topless, and they looked ridiculous like this. A nice evening, not great except for a little B'way electricity in the Redding piece. I've a limited dance budget, so once will probably be enough for a good long while, given the competition.

Thanks so much, and my apologies for the trouble. I'd seen the photo in the book I'm holding at this very moment, but it hadn't occurred to me that that was an ad since he's in it, and I just read about it tonight. I wonder if that was a kind of ad done in those years, with someone else in it (in this case, the designer), or if that photo was the occasion, but not the actual ad that would have appeared in the magazines. The book does have some marvelous photos in it, and I wonder if at later periods the one from 'Deaths and Entrances' on the page opposite the Fox photo, might have been very effective as some kind of ad, perfume perhaps--it's gorgeous.

rg--have you the late 30s photo of Graham in mink for furrier I.J. Fox, I just read about it in the McDonagh: "With her hat poised rakishly forward, she posed in front of a mirror displaying Mr. Fox's mink as pertly as anyone who had earned a badge of distinction".

I mentioned it on the Most Handsome Dancers thread, of course, where it did not seem to demonstrate it. Martins was very handsome when young, still not bad, but I remember first seeing this photo, opening a New Yorker, and thought it was awful.

This was pretty great, I agree. I saw it several times, and must have seen you too.

That's by far the best-phrased New Year's Resolution I've ever heard--esp. since it gives an order, instead of making a guilty plea about some personal habit...

Oh, good heavens, nothing could be simpler, I go there all the time. I don't know why I haven't gone to their reference room in so many years. I'll go next week and report back. Thanks--can't wait!