To be completely frank, this blog started out as basically an ode to Cate Blanchett, the central figure in Julian Rosefeldt’s video installation that I saw the other day at the Park Avenue Armory (that sadly closed today). I imagined writing about Blanchett as the brilliant actress that she is, and posting on the night she makes her Broadway debut in The Present. Sadly, I have not seen it yet, so no review tonight, but I will be posting my review next weekend as my press tickets are for this coming Thursday, and I can’t wait to see it. I’ve seen her numerous times on the stage here in NYC, but not on the Broadway stage. She blew my mind in Streetcar Named Desire and Hedda Gabler years ago at BAM, and Uncle Vanya in DC. I hear pretty good buzz about The Present, and of course, raves about her performance. The play itself is not getting the same raves as her performance though, but I’m going to stay clear of the reviews that come out tonight, I want to write my review fresh and clear of anyone else’s opinions. So stay tuned for mine…

On the night of her Broadway debut, my plan was to talk about her career as an actress in such movies as Carol, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Blue Jasmine, Hanna, Babel, The Aviator, and the list could go on and on, but after taking in Rosefeldt’s astonishing installation, my focus has altered a bit. It did remind me of when she played Jude in I’m Not There, a rumination on the life of Bob Dylan. How she made us forget about the beauty that she is, and beguiled us into seeing only what she wanted us to see or hear or imagine.

But what Rosefeldt has done here is beyond that. He has created something mind-blowing, significant, and in some ways, almost overwhelming. Walking into the vast space that is the Armory on Park Ave, it’s difficult to take in what assaults our senses. There are 13 large video screens spread out over this huge cavernous space. In front of each screen are benches and seats to recline on. We are beaconed to sit back and study each and every adventure that is presented. Linger over the individual passages, and truly listen to what is being said. At first it is difficult to absorb, as the experience of sound and imagery is overwhelming, but once our senses settle down somewhat, we find ourselves being pulled in to each and every moment and image.

Rosefeldt amassed a number of influential manifestos, 50 in fact were chosen, from young artists who eventually became legends. Many of these artist I’ve never heard of, but each one created their own personal manifesto early in their respective careers. The topics variety including art, culture, society, poetry, literature, theatre, and performance. From the fifty, 13 distinct passages were created, blending segments together, editing and weaving them together, to represent different platforms, such as Dada, Futurism, Conceptual Art/Minimalism, and Surrealism/Spatialism. Each screen shows a 12 1/2 minute video presentation starring the magnificent Cate Blanchett inhabiting a central role in each of the 12 dramatic vignette (one is more of an introduction with just an image, and in another, she plays two characters). The monologues are fullsizerender-17delivered within the context of the vignette, and although they aren’t literally entwined to the visual, the ideas are connected, profound, and engaging.

“Abandon love, abandon aestheticism, abandon the baggage of wisdom” (Kazimir Malevich, 1916); “Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination” (Jim Jarmusch, 2002); “A cool early morning wind is blowing around us; he who doesn’t want to shiver must stride out” (Bruno Taut, 1920). (Quotes collected and published in the NYTimes article, “Cate Blanchett Morphs a Dozen Times in ‘Manifesto’ by Robin Pogrebin, Oct 25, 2016”

It’s a lot to take in, and I must admit that it took sometime to completely get past the feeling of being overwhelmed with the conceptually intense dialogue, which, I might add, is surprisingly profound in terms of the current situation of the world we live in. There is an idea that hangs over the whole space, that is asking us, as a member of our current culture, to take the time to listen to these important words. To go far beyond what is currently the norm, and invest our attention to the highly theatrical spirit of discourse and rebellion. Rosenfeldt felt that maybe the world has a unspoken need, and maybe even a hunger for something more than a tweet or a short proclamation on social media. To revolt again the “populists of our time” and take in a bigger idea rich in meaning and prophet-like concepts. In one moment midway through the 12 1/2 minutes, all 12 Blanchett creations come together and almost sing a unified discourse that is both abstract and startling. The 12 become unified in theme and ambition, giving us a raw and exciting moment of engagement, possibly jolting us out of passivity.

To sit in front of each is to be bombarded with a high level of intellectualism and grand thinking about what is happening to our world, what is wrong with our world, and what we need to do. Rosenfeldt states that each manifesto, although not presented in their entirety, aren’t meant to be taken in on their own, but to be compiled and compared in an never ending dialogue of constructive debate. Blanchett has outdone herself by inhabiting these 13 different characters in these 12 different setups, each as powerful and engaging as the next. Hours could be spent taking in one after the other, before circling around and re-engaging again with an old familiar face, searching for details in the abstractionisms. Highly theatrical and definitely star-driven (would this arena be filled if there was no star power within the video presentations?), it is also supremely inventive and exceptional. The show, I’m sorry to say is closed, but maybe somewhere it will pop up again, and if it does, find a few hours to spend gazing at the wonder of Blanchett. But in the end, be ready to be moved by far more then her exceptional talent.

For more go to frontmezzjunkies.com

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Ross

My love for theater started when I first got involved in high school plays and children's theatre in London, Ontario, which led me—much to my mother’s chagrin—to study set design, directing, and arts administration at York University in Toronto. But rather than pursuing theater as a career (I did produce and design a wee bit), I became a self-proclaimed theater junkie and life-long supporter. I am not a writer by trade, but I hope to share my views and feelings about this amazing experience we are so lucky to be able to see here in NYC, and in my many trips to London, Enlgand, Chicago, Toronto, Washington, and beyond. Living in London, England from 1985 to 1986, NYC since 1994, and on my numerous theatrical obsessive trips to England, I've seen as much theater as I can possibly afford. I love seeing plays. I love seeing musicals. If I had to choose between a song or a dance, I'd always pick the song. Dance—especially ballet—is pretty and all, but it doesn’t excite me as, say, Sondheim lyrics. But that being said, the dancing in West Side Story is incredible! As it seems you all love a good list, here's two. FAVORITE MUSICALS (in no particular order): Sweeney Todd with Patti Lupone and Michael Cerveris in 2005. By far, my most favorite theatrical experience to date. Sunday in the Park with George with Jenna Russell (who made me sob hysterically each and every one of the three times I saw that production in England and here in NYC) in 2008 Spring Awakening with Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele in 2007 Hedwig and the Angry Inch (both off-Boadway in 1998 and on Broadway in 2014, with Neal Patrick Harris, but also with Michael C. Hall and John Cameron Mitchell, my first Hedwig and my last...so far), Next To Normal with Alice Ripley (who I wish I had seen in Side Show) in 2009 FAVORITE PLAYS (that’s more difficult—there have been so many and they are all so different): Angels in American, both on Broadway and off Lettice and Lovage with Dame Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack in 1987 Who's Afraid of Virginai Woolf with Tracy Letts and Amy Morton in 2012 Almost everything by Alan Ayckbourn, but especially Woman in Mind with Julia McKenzie in 1986 And to round out the five, maybe Proof with Mary Louise Parker in 2000. But ask me on a different day, and I might give you a different list. These are only ten theatre moments that I will remember for years to come, until I don’t have a memory anymore. There are many more that I didn't or couldn't remember, and I hope a tremendous number more to come. Thanks for reading. And remember: read, like, share, retweet, enjoy. For more go to frontmezzjunkies.com

Art

Ken Fallin’s Broadway: Celebrating Hadestown’s 1000th Performance

Published

22 hours ago

March 24, 2023

Ken Fallin

On Sunday, March 19, 2023, Hadestown celebrated the first day of spring and the show’s recently-achieved milestone of 1,000 performances at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre.

The handsome artist with Anais Mitchell

On hand were songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and director Rachel Chavkin, Tony Award winner Lillias White, original Broadway cast member Jewelle Blackman as Persephone, Grammy Award winner Reeve Carney as Orpheus, Tony Award nominee Tom Hewitt as Hades, and two-time Tony Award nominee Eva Noblezada as Eurydice. were joined by Amelia Cormack, Shea Renne, and Soara-Joye Ross as the Fates. The chorus of Workers is played by Emily Afton, Malcolm Armwood, Alex Puette, Trent Saunders, and Grace Yoo.

The winner of eight 2019 Tony Awards including Best New Musical and the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, Hadestown is the most honored show of the 2018-2019 Broadway season. In addition to the Tony and Grammy Awards, it has been honored with four Drama Desk Awards, six Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Outstanding New Broadway Musical, and the Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical.

Following two intertwining love stories — that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone — Hadestown invites audiences on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back. Mitchell’s beguiling melodies and Chavkin’s poetic imagination pit industry against nature, doubt against faith and fear against love. Performed by a vibrant ensemble of actors, dancers, and singers, Hadestown delivers a deeply resonant and defiantly hopeful theatrical experience.

Art

The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation’s Golden Age

Published

2 weeks ago

March 13, 2023

Suzanna Bowling

In the summer of 1941, Walt Disney’s top animator led hundreds of Disney artists out on strike, nearly breaking the studio. This is the true story of those two creative geniuses, plus a corrupt advisor and a mafia gangster, who collided to cause the greatest battle in Hollywood history.

An essential piece of Disney history has been unreported for eighty years.

Soon after the birth of Mickey Mouse, one animator raised the Disney Studio far beyond Walt’s expectations. That animator also led a union war that almost destroyed it. Art Babbitt animated for the Disney studio throughout the 1930s and through 1941, years in which he and Walt were jointly driven to elevate animation as an art form, up through Snow White, Pinocchio, and Fantasia.

But as America prepared for World War II, labor unions spread across Hollywood. Disney fought the unions while Babbitt embraced them. Soon, angry Disney cartoon characters graced picket signs as hundreds of animation artists went out on strike. Adding fuel to the fire was Willie Bioff, one of Al Capone’s wise guys who was seizing control of Hollywood workers and vied for the animators’ union.

Using never-before-seen research from previously lost records, including conversation transcriptions from within the studio walls, author and historian Jake S. Friedman reveals the details behind the labor dispute that changed animation and Hollywood forever.

Join a book talk with the author Jake S. Friedman on March 21 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm, at The Lambs, 3 West 51st, 5th floor. RSVP@The-Lambs.org. The book will be available to be purchased and signed by the author.

Jake S. Friedman is a New York–based writer, teacher, and artist. He is a longtime contributor to Animation Magazine, and has also written for American History Magazine, The Huffington Post, Animation World Network, Animation Mentor, and The Philadelphia Daily News. For ten years he was an animation artist for films and television as seen on Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Saturday Night Live. He currently teaches History of Animation at the Fashion Institute of Technology and at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. The rest of his time he specializes in mental health for the creative psyche.

The moderator will be honorary Lamb Foster Hirsch, a professor film at Brooklyn College and the author of 16 books on film and theater, including The Dark Side of the Screen:Film Noir, A Method to Their Madness: The History of the Actors Studio, and Kurt Weill on Stage: From Berlin to Broadway.

The Cole will be Magda Katz.

More about the book here.

Art

April’s Midnight Moment A New Nature

Published

2 weeks ago

March 10, 2023

Suzanna Bowling

In A New Nature, the Midnight Moment for April being shown from 11:57pm – 12am, artist Mark Dorf imagines the future of our natural world as one that’s neither a blockbuster-style apocalyptic wasteland nor an Edenic return to primitive earth. Instead, the vignettes in A New Nature depict the dynamics of our present — a messy, global system in which simulations are entangled with our expectations of real life, and our perception of what constitutes the natural world is mediated, supported, suppressed, amplified, and interrupted by technology.

Integrating gaming and surveillance aesthetics with both animations and footage of the Rocky Mountain region, Dorf collapses the barriers of what’s real in a way that echoes our digital consumption of the world. A mass of living tree roots is scanned and imposed over a simulated ocean; a mountain range is represented as a topographical blueprint. Even the filmed footage, captured at the field research station of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, is manipulated with compositing techniques and color treatment. As Dorf explains, “The more we create simulations of landscapes or nature, the more we expect nature to be and perform as the simulation that we’ve already made.”

This unique edit of the work was crafted specifically to mirror the brisk pacing of the plazas and billboards in Times Square. As the video progresses, the pace increases, emphasizing the influence of our technological lives on the way “Nature” is understood and perceived.

“The presentation of A New Nature in Times Square is an extension of the concepts in the work itself. Nestled within the endless motion and electrical currents flowing through the glowing canyons of Times Square, the moving images harmonize with their surroundings and enact their post-natural position.”
— Mark Dorf

April’s Midnight Moment is presented in partnership with Public Works Administration in conjunction with Dorf’s solo exhibition there from April 1–30, 2023, which includes the full length version of A New Nature.

Dorf would like to thank the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, and Dr. Paul CaraDonna and Dr. Amy Iler for their continued support in bringing together the arts and sciences.

Mark Dorf is a New York based artist whose practice utilizes photography, video, digital media, and sculpture. Often working directly with ecologists and technologists in the production of his works, Dorf is influenced by human’s perceptions of and interactions with what we call “Nature”, urbanism, design, and virtual environments. As opposed to seeing these subjects as categorically separate, Dorf reveals their entanglement and integration with one another as an inclusive and lively planetary ecology. Being both self-aware and critical of their own means of production, Dorf’s works craft a vision of an ecological future that navigates away from environmental collapse in the Anthropocene and imagine a “New Nature.”

Public Works Administration (“PWA”) is a digital art project space located in the 50th Street subway in Times Square. They spotlight underground artists who use digital tools to drive culture forward.