EXTRA CRITICUM

Point Counterpoint: Licata and Teco on Fame v.4

E.C. Authors David Licata and Rolando Teco recently embarked on an extended conversation on the subject of fame. Here's part four of their exchange:

Is Theatre Worth Saving? A Uniquely American Question

It is a constant refrain that seems to be growing in volume with each season. Literary departments of theatres nationwide are overwhelmed and understaffed. There simply isn’t the manpower (nor expertise) available to adequately evaluate the deluge of new plays being submitted here, there and everywhere. So what’s a country to do?

This is fundamentally an American problem, borne in part at least of a nasty confluence of two circumstances unique to the United States.

A huge loss for theater criticism in Boston

Dan Kennedy reports that the Boston Phoenix has fired longtime theater editor Carolyn Clay as part of the downsizing at just about every publication in the US on newsprint.

I wrote for Clay for several years as a freelance theater critic, and she was a fabulous editor, able to improve my writing without taking anything away from my voice. Her knowledge of theater and the Boston theater scene helped me to look smarter than I really was.

She was also a principled critic with a cheeky sense of humor, as this recent Letters to the Editor exchange shows.

This is obviously a blow for the theater community in Boston, already suffering from cutbacks in coverage at the Boston Globe and the near extinction of coverage on TV.

Search Extra Criticum

Extra Criticum now features its very own search engine, courtesy of Lijit. Enter any text in the little pink "search" box in the upper right corner to call up every post from the E.C. archives featuring that text or phrase. Try entering the name of your favorite actor, writer, title or a specific concept or locale. You'd be surprised by what pops up!  ----------------->>>

Point Counterpoint: Licata and Teco on Fame v.3

E.C. Authors David Licata and Rolando Teco recently embarked on an extended conversation on the subject of fame. Here's part three of their exchange:

Is Decentralization Really Better?

This post caught my eye. Some very interesting points are made regarding the value of creating art within the "confines" of an institution as opposed to all by one's lonesome, as has been the recent trend, spurred on by the likes of YouTube and MySpace et al.

Douglas McLennan writes in his blog, diacritical:

There's lots of debating to be done about whether we need large institutions to report news. But a similar question can also be asked about the arts. The 1990s was a decade of arts institutionalization in America. Smaller theatres became larger theatres. Mid-size museums became bigger museums. And symphony orchestras expanded.

The internet has decentralized the arts. People make art online, compose and record music and make movies in home studios, Massive online multiplayer games have changed the ways we think about narrative. Personal digital players have changed the ways audiences consume art.

Read the full post here.

Point Counterpoint: Licata and Teco on Fame v.2

E.C. Authors David Licata and Rolando Teco recently embarked on an extended conversation on the subject of fame. Here's part two of their exchange:

Point Counterpoint: Licata and Teco on Fame v.1

E.C. Authors David Licata and Rolando Teco recently embarked on an extended conversation on the subject of fame. Here's their first exchange:

Discount Tix to see Susan Sarandon and Geoffrey Rush in... some play

Today, Playbill sent me an offer for $45 tickets to see a Broadway show. And it features stars!

Needless to say, my heart leapt... but not for the reasons you might suspect.

See, I think when producers are having to slash ticket prices for another celebrity-stuffer gimmick, it's good news for the future of American Theatre.

Church Giggles

SPOILER ALERT - The end of The Reader is revealed below.

“One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.”
                                                                                                                        -Oscar Wilde

During the last scene of Stephen Daldry’s The Reader, I felt a rush of cathartic emotion. I’m not sure what exactly caused it: the autumnal setting, the mournful music, Ralph Fiennes’ wet eyes. But when the emotion came, it came strong.

First, I chuckled. Chuckles quickly turned to laughter. Then guffaws. Soon I was helpless. I held my sides, tears running down my face.

It was so great.

How to Read the Back of a DVD Box

"A beautiful film of ravishing power and remarkable performances." Scott Foundas, Variety.
{The only blurb on the  box is from a Variety critic? They couldn't even get a quote from Rolling Stone's Peter "I've-never-met-a-film-about-which-
I-couldn't-write-at-least-one-sentence-ladened-with-superlatives" Travers? Not promising.}

Written and directed by Michael Almereyda {excellent! I think Nadja was fun and inventive and his Hamlet was brilliant}, this high-tech thriller {uh-oh} stars David Arquette (The Scream Trilogy) {eh}, Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club) {20+ years ago!} Gloria Reuben (TV's "ER") {like her, she's solid} Liane Balaban (New Waterford Girl) {don't know her, but I once worked with a woman who had the same last name and she was a distant relative of Bob Balaban, wonder if they're related?} and Clarence Williams III (The General's Daughter). {C'mon, if you're going to mention The Breakfast Club, how about citing Purple Rain, or better still "The Mod Squad"!} 

The Great Drew Barrymore Debate...

...can continue today! She is on Fresh Air at 3 o'clock. She will be talking about the HBO movie of Grey Gardens. We can add our voices to the din!

Hardcore fans?  Sell out movie? Let's get this thing going again! Work is really boring today...

Does It Matter if Adam Lambert Is Gay?

If you have a pulse, you probably already are aware of the tremendously bizarre conversation (see the New York Times link above) that the blogosphere is having about the sexual orientation of American Idol contestant Adam Lambert. Why, I’ve even participated in this in a few posts myself from the past few weeks because, well, although I’m not a die-hard fan, it’s hard not to notice the show, hard not to notice Lambert (‘guyliner” does seem to be the number one 2009 trend – after hating the new Facebook redesign) and hard not to see that he is far and away the best singer and best performer that the show has right now. And perhaps ever. I maintain (much to the guffawing of friends) that his renditions of "Mad World" (sublimely tortured and appropriately haunting), "Ring of Fire" (an interpretation that blew my mind away in it's beauty) and the Michael Jackson "Black or White" (fresh, clean and energetic) were comparable with or in the case of "Mad World" succeeded the artistic success of the original recordings.

This is no idle (or is that Idol?) statement.

Make Mine a Double

I was watching Guillermo Del Toro’s director’s commentary of Pan’s Labyrinth the other night and learned that he conceived of Pan’s Labyrinth as a companion piece to his 2001 film, The Devil’s Backbone. While it’s hard not to like that combination, I’m intrigued by another pairing: Pan’s Labyrinth, set in 1944 and made in 2006, about a young girl who escapes the brutality of her time through imagination, and Spirit of the Beehive, set in 1940 and made in 1973 during the waning days of Franco’s dictatorship, about a young girl whose imagination is informed by the brutality of her time. (Yes, I know, I've written about Spirit of the Beehive before, and this probably won't be the last time; you'll just have to indulge me.) Spirit of the Beehive, out of necessity, is all subtlety and poetry, two things that often elude or confound censors. There is no mention of fascism and the bad guys are a presence, but hardly present. Pan’s Labyrinth has its own poetry and subtlety, to be sure, but Del Toro didn't have to worry about incurring the wrath of Spain's Frankenstein Monster; the fascists are very present and working their evil with gruesome, eye-averting abandon. Seen together, it almost seems like Spirit of the Beehive has been censored, and the censored bits wound up in Pan’s Labyrinth. If I were some kind of mash-up expert, I’d try my hand at merging the two.

Making the World Larger

Awards are stupid. We all know it. The idea that it is quantifiable that one book is better than another, that one performance is greater than another, is ridiculous.  

That said, I really like them. I follow awards assiduously. I root for people I like (Philip Roth) and against people I don’t (Hilary Swank). It’s fun. I’ve even won a couple small awards myself, and been really happy when I did.

So now, long past the point when it would have been even mildly relevant, I’m going to make a case that someone should have won an award. I fully realize that, in doing so, I’m contradicting myself. Graham Greene said it was an artist’s responsibility to contradict themselves, to see things from all sides. But that’s kind of a highfalutin’ sentiment in this case. Because all I really want to do here is talk about Mickey Rourke.