Kestrell

From the announcement:

Are you looking for something unique and fun to do during Halloween weekend, then you will want to consider attending one of the audio described performances of Rocky Horror Show presented by Moonbox Productions during Halloween Week!

Moonbox Productions
presents The Rocky Horror Show
at The Lab, 25 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA

The Audio Described performances are at 8 PM on Friday, October 29, 2021 and Friday, November 5. (Pre-show description starts at 7:30.)

Tickets for the audio described performances are $20.
To order your tickets at the $20 price, contact
Kara Crumrine at:
Community@moonbox.org
All requests for accommodation will be prioritized.

ABOUT THE SHOW
Back by popular demand, Moonbox Productions will perform Richard O’Brien’s legendary cult classic, The Rocky Horror Show, at a pop-up theater in Harvard Square. Directed by David Lucey, Choreography by Daniel Forest Sullivan, Assistant Choreography by Joy Clark, and Music Directed by Mindy Cimini. Starring Peter Mill as Frank ‘N’ Furter (Elliot Norton Award Nominee - Outstanding Musical Performance 2019).
A humorous tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the late 1940s through to the early 1970s, The Rocky Horror Show tells the story of Brad Majors and his fiancée, Janet Weiss, who get caught in a thunderstorm with a flat-tire and are forced to seek help at the castle of Dr. Frank ’N’ Furter, a transvestite scientist with a manic genius and insatiable libido. Brad, Janet, and Frank’ N’ Furter’s cohorts are swept up into the scientist’s latest experiment, a Frankenstein-style monster in the form of an artificially made, fully grown, physically perfect muscle man named Rocky Horror, complete “with blond hair and a tan”. The night’s misadventures will cause Brad and Janet to question everything they’ve known about themselves, each other, love, and lust. With an irresistible rock ’n’ roll score, The Rocky Horror Show is a hilarious, wild ride that no audience will soon forget.

Moonbox Productions requires face masks and proof of vaccination or proof of a recent negative COVID test.

Kara Crumrine
Moonbox Productions
Director of Community/Accessibility Initiatives
community@moonbox.org
603-748-1693 (voice)
she/her/hers

mostly focusing on the relationship between acting and narrating
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/16/throat-hurts-brain-hurts-secret-life-of-audiobook-stars-tim-dowling

In collaboration with the Underground Railway Theatre
Performed through December 31, 2017
"Magic, Merriment, and Puppetry: Transformation in One Winter's Night"

https://www.centralsquaretheater.org/shows/a-christmas-carol/

Yesterday Teenybuffalo and I went to the Central Square Theatre's performance of "A Christmas Carol," and found it to be a very lively and, yes, merry time. Central Square Theatre has a tradition of performing extravagant holiday shows reminiscent of traditional pantomime, but this year they really outdid themselves.

The theatre is set up in the round and, as one is sitting there, waiting for the performance to begin, brightly-garbed street performers wanderin one by one, performing card tricks, playing percussion on found objects, and joking with the audience members. There is even a one-woman Punch and Judy show (tip: keep your eyes on Punch during the show, he is often doing something silly or sarcastic in the background).

It takes one a while to realize that one is in the midst of a London street fair. This continues for quite a while, and the audience is encouraged to get up and interact with the performers.

I loved this immersive aspect to the show, and it definitely set the tone for the rest of the performance.

Finally, one of the children announces the story, and the actress in Indian dress speaks what is possibly my favorite opening line ever,

"Marley was dead, to begin with..."

and then another of the performers picks up the next line, and the story continues to be narrated by the different performers.

Now, those of you who know me have probably heard me go on about how I have read "A Christmas Carol" every Christmas Eve since I was a child, and how in recent years Alexx reads it to me every year, so I believe I am no slouch to be easily impressed by some glib rendition of Christmas Carol. There are a dozen different ways to read the story: a traditional "winter's tale" ghost story, Victorian fantasy, sociopolitical commentary, and yes, disability story, among them.
Thanks to the New York Public Library, one can even experience
Neil Gaiman reading A Christmas Carol from Charles Dickens's own prompt copy
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2014/12/19/podcast-neil-gaiman-christmas
allowing the listener to hear the story just as Dickens himself would have read it aloud to his audience.

So when I say that the Central Square Theatre's production manages to make the story fresh and fun, please take my word for it and go see this production.

And they really did cast the most adorable Tiny Tim ever, and he has an exceptionally beautiful voice.

I don't want to ruin the many surprises the performers offer, but I do want to send a shoutout to one of my favorite ghosts ever, the Ghost of Christmas Present, who in this multicultural version had a Jamaican accent ("Come in and know me better, mon!").

I also wish to share one of my favorite moments.

Those of you who know Teenybuffalo know how she loves dancing, so when the story got to the part with the dancers at Fezziwig's office party, and an awkward Scrooge came over to ask Teenybuffalo if she would show him how to dance, it couldn't have been funnier if there was a blinking sign over Tb's head shouting "Ask me to dance, PLEASE!". (Come to think of it, perhaps there is, and no one ever told me.) And the group did actually perform an entire country dance, during which I heard Tb whirl by with a gleeful "Hi, Kes!".

I thought some people I know might be interested in this new book from Cambridge University Press:

_A History of Theatre in Spain_
edited by David T. Gies and Maria M. Delgado

Synopsis:
Leading theater historians and practitioners map a theatrical history that moves from the religious tropes of Medieval Iberia to the postmodern practices of twenty-first-century Spain. Considering work across the different languages of Spain, from vernacular Latin to Catalan, Galician and Basque, this history
engages with the work of actors and directors, designers and publishers, agents and impresarios, and architects and ensembles, in indicating the ways in which theater has both commented on and intervened in the major debates and issues of the day. Chapters consider paratheatrical activities and popular performance, such as the comedia de magia and flamenco, alongside the works of Spain's major dramatists, from Lope de Vega to Federico García Lorca. Featuring revealing interviews with actress Nuria Espert, director Lluís Pasqual and playwright Juan Mayorga, it positions Spanish theater within a paradigm that recognizes its links and intersections with wider European and Latin American practices.

It is always gratifying to realize that one can apply oneself to the appreciation of culture while still getting a full measure of gratuitous sex and violence.

Friday evening I went off to see Alexx, along with my landlord and various friends and acquaintances perform
Thomas Middleton's "The Revenger's Tragedy."
http://www.tech.org/~cleary/middhome.html
I should mention here that this play is not really a tragedy because to paraphrase local lawyer-actor Michael Anderson in "A Bloody Deed"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4a_r9H5NSs&feature=gv
his performance piece on Shakespeare's "Richard III": in a tragedy, some people die, and you feel sorry for them, while in this play, lots of people die, and you don't feel sorry for *any* of them.

Well, "Revenger's Tragedy" takes the "Richard III" scenario--a protagonist who confesses in the opening scene that he intends on slaying a slew of people who have pissed him off--and then kicks it up a notch, offing characters left and right with the sort of manic glee that I associate with--well, let's justsay that if John Webster was the Quentin Tarantino of his day, Thomas Middleton may have been the Alfred Hitchcock of his age, proving once again that funny murder has always been period.

For those of you didn't get a chance to see my husband and my landlord and the other brilliant maniacs who are my friends in this one-night-only extravaganza at the Elk's Club, I commend to you "Revenger's Tragedy," the 2002 Ren-noir film version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WxwNLaSLXY
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dfw0BUSZus
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2zEdRbnVfk
starring Christopher Eccleston, Derek Jacoby, and Eddie Izzard and directed by Alex Cox of "Repo Man" fame.

Saturday afternoon Alexx and I went off to see "ain't Misbehavin'" performed by the Lyric Stage Company in Copley Square
https://lyricstage.com/main_stage/aint_misbehavin/
a musical based on the songs of Fats Waller. Blues and jazz fans should see this show, and those who are not blues and jazz fans should see it anyway, because the music is so incredible. The frist half of the show is extremely high-energy, while the second half pulls out all the vocal stops, showing off the fantastic range of songs Waller created, from the very funny "The Reefer Song" and "Your Feets Too Big" to the bluesy-sweet "Mean to Me" and the soul-chilling "Black and Blue." Highly recommended.

Alexx and I went to the Central Square Theatre
http://www.centralsquaretheater.org/
for the first time to see their production of "The Hound of the Baskervilles," which was very fun. This is another company which is creating smart and original productions on a very small budget. The atmosphere is tha of a casual cafe populated by ecxcentric characters, and that's before the play even begins. This show is also very family-friendly, as it is silly enough to amuse kids under ten, while also providing enough riffing on the characters to amuse the adults (this production does not stick to canon, so purists beware).

As befits a theatre so close to MIT (it's just a few doors away from Mary Chung's), it also does plays with science themes, so check out the site for information about upcoming plays. There's also going to be more family-oriented plays such as a Huckleberry Finn musical and a version of Arabian Nights.
Last but not least, their Web site is extremely accessible, something which I cannot say about most Boston theatre companies's Web sites.

1001 is a play written by Jason Grote which takes its basic structure from _The Arabian Nights, _, but which also weaves in a modern story abou a couple living in New York City, Alan, the man, being Jewish, and his girlfriend, Dahna, being Arabic. Really, though, this is a story about how we use story to make sense of a seemingly insensible world. At least, that's what I think was the theme,
but Alexx had some other ideas
http://alexx-kay.livejournal.com/308058.html
--it's jus that sort of multi-layerd, complex storytelling. While the ending is downbeat, it is true to the story, and because of that, I didn't find it that depressing; after all, if I am going to make the argumen that story is the way in which I make sense of chaos and tragedy, then the story is always unfolding, always uncertain, until I find out what happens next.

I want to make a special mention regarding the amazing talent of the actors and the impressive artistic creativity of this production. The play contained multiple nesting and forking stories, involving dozens of characters, while using only about six actors. A variety of multi-modal cues were used to indicate a change of scene: there was the narrator characer who announced the scene, preceded by a sound effect tha indicated a scene change, and accompanied by a change in lighting. I had little trouble keeping up with the changes.

Last of all, I have to menion hat one of my favorite scenes was the one in which Jorge Luis Borges appears to chat with Sinbad the Sailor, who is stranded (again). Borges plays his narrative games with Sinbad, who looks agahst and says, "You're freaking me out, Jorge Luis Borges!" (which, in my mind, is a highly quotable line).

Kes: This is my favorite local Shakespeare company but, sadly, it has one of the least accessible Web sites I've ever experienced, so apologies for not providing more details about where and when the performances are occuring.

Alexx and I went to see ASP's (Actors Shakespeare Project) production of "Anthony and Cleopatra" this past Saturday and I found it to be a very entertaining performance. First, I had never really noticed how many funny bits there are in this play, although many of the funny bits are funny in a dark humor sort of way. Second, Anthony and Cleopatra are not portrayed as giddy young lovers carried away by Cupid's arrow, but as older, experienced lovers whose political careers often place them at odds with having a romantic relationship with one another. Anthony in particular broke my heart, because to some degree he is an old soldier whose code of honor and friendship can no longer exist in the new world the much younger Augustus is creating.
The supporting actors who played Cleopatra's main lady in waiting and Anthony's lieutenant were both brilliant, and the actor playing Augustus did a scarily good job portraying him as something of a psychopath.

What didn't really work for me was some of the set design. When you first walked in, there was a sound of a tinkling fountain, which pretty much made everyone who sat down have to go to the bathroom after five minutes. The bright flourescent lighting for the scenes taking place in Rome were also a poor choice, and I could tell when there was a scene change because Alexx would flinch when the lights flared up. There was also an attempt, according to the program, to highlight Mark Anthony and Cleopatra as media celebrities, but the only scene that really tried to portray this was a weird bit with masked actors using toy boats to portray the sea battle scene, with a laugh track playing in the background.

A wonderful performance, highly recommended. I also feel the need to add a note about a conversation which went on in the row behind me. It seemed to involve appropriate Shakespeare names to give one's cat, and one woman scorned Fulvia, while another added, "And Agrippa." When Alexx returned from the bathroom, I asked, "What is R. & L.'s cat's name?" and he replied that he didn't remember all the cats's names, except for the one named Agrippa. (Perhaps it just takes a certain sort of person with a certain sort of style to have a cat named Agrippa?)
Next Shakespeare play:
A Midsummer Night's Dream
http://bard-in-boston.livejournal.com/82131.html

"Eurydicey," a play by Sarah Ruhl (Samuel French, 2008)

A retelling of the Eurydice myth from Eurydice's point of view, this version presents Eurydice as someone who is more than just Orpheus's dead wife who serves as the instigating element for his adventure to the underworld.

Sarah Ruhl is somewhat reminiscent of Tom Stoppard in her ability to create characters who can be funny, petulant, witty, weird, scared, clueless, confused, and compassionate--namely, fully human--within the small interval of time measured by a play's length, and yet remain completely believable.

This retelling reminds us that Eurydice was young, a teenage girl who was just beginning to find out who she was, and just beginning to wish to be something other than Orpheus's girlfriend, when her life was cut short by the whim of a god. Finding herself in the underworld and once more with only the vaguest sense of who she had been, Eurydice must recreate herself despite the mockery and the seeming senselessness she finds in her new world and, just as she appears to have created a life for herself and her father, Orpheus shows up to bring her back to her previous daylife life as his wife. Eurydice's conflicting desires result in what may be a tragedy, or may merely be the myth of the eternal return.

In many ways, this is not a complex play. It is brief, to be performed without intermission; it has only a handful of characters; it has almost no props beyond an imaginatively used ball of twine (a clew, perhaps?) and a few sound effects.

Yet, in other ways, this is a fascinating puzzle of a play which concerns itself with that most puzzling of questions, who am I?, a question which is perhaps, even more confusing for young women who are so often pressured to see themselves as the girlfriend of some significant male, be it the local football hero or an international rock star. Ironically, it is the twilight world of the dead which provides Eurydice with the tools she needs to discover herself, although those tools seem to be nothing more than a ball of twine, a book containing the complete works of Shakespeare, and the space within which she can be herself.

Eurydice will be produced here in Boston by the
Independent Drama Society
April 22-30
The Boston Center for the Arts
Plaza Black Box Theatre
more info at
http://sites.google.com/site/independentdrama/

Alexx and I are off to see "Sleep No More" in NYC this evening, and "Play Dead" tomorrow.

Did you know it's Alfred Hitchcock Day?

How about a haunted house made from Legos?
http://mikedoylesnap.blogspot.com/2011/01/three-story-victorian-with-tree.html
The notes are really fascinating, as they get into the creator's ideas about texture over color and the doppleganger nature of abandoned houses.

And here is a NY Times article on the revived interest in Edward Gorey's art
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/arts/design/06gorey.html?_r=1
with some comments re the unexpected popularity of the Gorey exhibit currently at the Boston Atheneum.

And I just ordered a copy of "Eurydice" by Sarah Ruhl, which is currently in rehearsal and set to open in a few weeks in Boston.