Monthly Archives: September 2015

MADAMA BUTTERFLY: Robert Wilson’s Triumph

  No one has represented American avant-garde performance more faithfully for over fifty years than Robert Wilson. But Winston Churchill noted, “To each there comes in their life time a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents.” For […]

September 29, 2015 – 12:30 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Opera, Poetry, Theater | Comments (0)

COMEDIE-FRANCAISE: Le Misanthrope as Chekhov

“Moliere’s protagonists are not just eccentrics, they are madmen. They are possessed. They have an idea…and that idea is fever in the blood.” No clearer example of Eric Bentley’s famous description can be found than in Clement Hervieu-Leger’s overwhelming production of Moliere’s 1666 “comedy”, The Misanthrope, or the Splenetic Lovers.” Mr. Hervieu-Leger has fashioned a […]

September 29, 2015 – 10:45 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in from Paul, Men and Women, Quotations, Theater | Comments (0)

CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER: A TEMPEST FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS

In his classic Prefaces to Shakespeare, Actor/Director Harley Granville Barker, reveals, in passing, an important secret about the theater: “A play, in fact, as we find it written, is a magic spell.” “The magic of the theater” is a phrase often bandied about, usually meaning “theater is wonderful.” But the phrase contains an important idea: […]

September 10, 2015 – 4:07 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Poetry, Quotations, Theater, Theology, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

GENEVA: BEGONIA BROWN GOES TO PARLIAMENT

Despite being one of his most daring and prescient works, of all Bernard Shaw’s plays, Geneva is the most disparaged. The criticism moved Shaw to join those who hate the play. By 1938 he had remarked: “What a horrible play! Why had I to write it?” Two events seem to have conspired to bring about […]

September 7, 2015 – 5:09 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in from Paul, History, Men and Women, Politics, Theater, World Affairs | Comments (0)