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Theater Reviews—“City Stories,” “Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone”

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 19 May 2016 18:18; Written by Kevin Filipski

City Stories

Written and directed by James Phillips; music composed/performed by Rosabella Gregory

Performances through May 29, 2016

Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone

Written by Eve Wolf; directed by Donald T. Sanders

Performances through May 1, 2016

Daphne Alexander and Tom Gordon in City Stories (photo: James Phillips)

Part of this spring’s edition of Brits Off Broadway at 59 E 59 Theaters—again bringing together an array of new work from across the pond—is City Stories, a smorgasbord of variable one-acts that melds into a pleasing platter evokes the sights, sounds and people of London.

Director James Phillips’s half-dozen playlets are in rotating repertory: the four I saw—Narcissi, about a couple’s lifelong distancing act; Lullaby, a futuristic tale of a city beset by a plague; Great Secret, about a search for the meaning of life; and Occupy, about the countless letters people have written to God, all stored in a cathedral—run from contrived to clever, all accompanied by songwriter Rosabella Gregory’s sprightly piano playing and singing, which comments on, at times even forming the crux of the alternately intimate and adversarial relationships on display.

In the talented cast, Daphne Alexander stands out with her bewitching manner and easy way with Phillips’ cascades of dialogue in Lullaby. Gregory equally transfixing: when singing the Beatles’ “Golden Slumbers” during particularly fraught moments in Lullaby, she brings Phillips’s somewhat forced allegory into sharper focus.

Ellen McLaughlin in Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone (photo: Joan Marcus)

Anna Akhmatova was the brilliant Russian poet whose lifelong struggle against Soviet government officials is encapsulated in Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone, a stimulating multi-media performing piece written by Eve Wolf—who also performs several potent Russian piano works—for her enterprising Ensemble for the Romantic Century.

The ruthless and lethal tactics of the Stalinists are shown—sometimes absurdly, as when two apparatchiks dance together to Dmitri Shostakovich—alongside Akhmatova having an unforgettable evening in conversation with British intellectual Isaiah Berlin and commiserating with artist contemporaries like Sergei Prokofiev. We see how great artists, even when up against intolerant, uncomprehending authorities, continue to create.

And it was remarkable that Soviet artists were able to create such enduring works of art: and the best moments occur when Wolf and fellow musicians—fellow pianist Max Barros, violinist Victoria Wolf Lewis and cellist Andrew Janss—play works by Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Sergei Rachmaninov, briefly transporting her (and us) to a place away from the gulags and secret police, however much that reality informed their very creativity.

Ellen McLaughlin makes a strong-willed yet fragile Anna while Berlin is nicely sketched in by Jeremy Holm; Donald T. Sanders’ effective direction, coupled with David Bengali’s artful projections, Vanessa James’s evocative sets and costumes and Beverly Emmons’s resourceful lighting, vividly reminds us of art’s ultimate power to triumph over evil.

City Stories

59 E 59 Theatres, 59 East 59^th Street, New York, NY

britsoffbroadway.com

Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone

Brooklyn Academy of Music, Fishman Space, Brooklyn, NY

romanticcentury.org

May '16 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 17 May 2016 23:15; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

The Boy
(Universal)

This ordinary thriller about a young woman who becomes an elderly couple’s nanny for their eternally young “son” has creepyTwilight Zone-like moments, but since it runs for 90 minutes instead of a half-hour, there’s a lot of time left for director William Brent Bell to lose his way, and he fills the remaining hour with half-baked attempts at psychological complexity.

Lauren Cohan makes a beguiling heroine, but unfortunately isn’t called on to do too much; and the big reveal, when it comes, is as implausible as what precedes it. The hi-def transfer is first-rate.

The Films of Maurice Pialat—Volume 1
(Cohen Film Collection)

Maurice Pialat, one of the best if unheralded French directors of the last three-plus decades of the 20^thcentury (he died in 2003 at age 77), is finally getting his due: this first volume of his films on Blu-ray collects three of his earliest triumphs: the trenchant terminal-illness drama The Mouth Agape(1974); an unsparing look at high school kids, Graduate First(1979); and Loulou (1980), a tough-minded romance with then-young stars Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert.

The films have been restored to mint condition; voluminous extras include interviews with Pialat’s widow and several of his stars (including actress Nathalie Baye, magnificent in Mouth), deleted scenes, and an 80-minute documentary about his life and career, Maurice Pialat: Love Exists.

Mr. Selfridge—Complete Final Season

(PBS)

Although I watched this soap opera faithfully, I never entirely bought Jeremy Piven as Harry Selfridge, the American entrepreneur who singlehandedly created and expanded London’s first large department store in the first decades of the last century: but the rest of the cast, costumes and sets have always been so authentic that they couched the series in a reality that even Piven’s modern sensibility couldn’t ruin.

And happily, in this final season, Piven came into his own; with heartwrenching storylines and perfect acting across the board, this season was the most satisfying Selfridge of all. All 10 episodes look glorious in hi-def; extras comprise featurettes and interviews.

Synchronicity
(Magnolia)

Although its title evokes both Carl Jung and The Police, Jacob Gentry’s convoluted sci-fi thrill ride takes a clever premise—the inventor of a time machine goes back in time to ensure no one steals his invention—and does little with it except for several ill-thought out time-travel sequences.

Chad McKnight is OK in the lead and Brianne Davis has an ingratiating Sandra Bullock-esque presence, but Michael Ironside’s too-obvious heavy drags down the entire movie. The film has a crisp, clean transfer on Blu; extras comprise interviews, commentary and music video.

Theeb

(Film Movement)

An auspicious feature debut, Naji Abu Nowar’s Theeb is a masterly exploration of the randomness of surviving a world destroyed by war, specifically the deserts of the Ottoman Empire during the 1916 war, where a young boy finds himself in spiraling violent events beyond his—or anyone’s—control.

Nowar’s assured directing rarely missteps, his unknown cast (especially Jacir Eid Al-Hwietat as the eponymous young boy) is sensationally fine and the film’s continued relevance to today is sadly apparent. The film looks superb on Blu; extras are Nowar’s commentary and Lebanese director Ely Dagher’s shortWaves ‘98.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
(Warner Archive)

Mike Nichols made his daring directing debut in 1966 with this still-powerful if somewhat neutered adaptation of Edward Albee’s best play: it’s a lacerating portrait of two couples, played with strength and wit by Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Sandy Dennis and George Segal.

Haskell Wexler’s gritty black and white photography—which earned him an Oscar—looks fantastic on Blu; extras comprise a commentary with Nichols and Steven Soderbergh and another with Wexler; featurettes including interview snippets with Albee; and an hour-long 1975 Liz Taylor profile, An Intimate Portrait.

DVDs of the Week

Beauty and the Beast—Complete 3^rdSeason
(CBS)

This reboot of the popular 1980s cult drama series—which propelled Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton to stardom—has now lasted as long as the original (with a new season on the way), as Jay Ryan and Kristin Kreuk more than ably stand in for the original stars.

The difference is that Perlman and Hamilton were more plausibly mythic, while these two have been scrubbed clean. Still, it’s mindless fun for the most part for anyone who wants to travel down this road again. All 13 episodes are included; extras are deleted scenes, a gag reel and featurettes.

Eisenstein in Guanajuato
(Strand Releasing)

British director Peter Greenaway’s latest extravaganza ostensibly follows Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein to Mexico in 1931, but it’s really about Greenaway’s preoccupations with sexuality, art and history, served with his usual sumptuous visual palette, witty musical juxtapositions (fellow Russian genius Sergei Prokofiev’s brilliant scores for Eisenstein’s films are heard throughout), copious nudity and inscrutable plotting and characterization.

It’s too bad that Strand doesn’t do Greenaway (and viewers) the favor of releasing his film on Blu-ray—as it is in Europe—since the ravishing visuals are its saving grace. The lone extra is an interview with actors Elmer Back and Luis Alberti, who play Eisenstein and his Mexican lover.

May '16 Digital Week II

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 10 May 2016 20:50; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

The Choice

(Lionsgate)

Author Nicholas Sparks strikes again, and unlike lightning, he continues to hit the same places again and again—yet another young and attractive couple’s relationship is put in perilous danger by something that’s been contrived more tortuously than this sentence.

This, his umpteenth version which takes meeting cute to its extreme, is made serviceable by leads Benjamin Walker and Teresa Palmer, along with the charming Maggie Grace as our hero’s sister; still, the formula is so well-worn that it ultimately becomes easy to resist. The film looks fine on Blu; extras include a commentary, featurettes and deleted scenes.

Dillinger

(Arrow)

John Milius’s crude 1973 shoot ‘em up has more gunfire than seems possible: this is one gangster flick where so many bullets are sprayed that it’s amazing everybody isn’t dead in the first half-hour.

Still, it’s fun in its typically trashy Milius way—and there are solid performances by Ben Johnson as FBI man Melvin Purvis and Warren Oates as John Dillinger himself; there’s also colorful support by Richard Dreyfuss as a particularly lunatic Pretty Boy Floyd and Michelle Phillips as Dillinger’s gorgeous moll. The restored hi-def transfer is authentically grainy; extras comprise several interviews and a commentary.

Melody Gardot—Live at the Olympia Paris

(Eagle Rock)

American singer-songwriter Melody Gardot’s Gallic surname and fluent French in her songs and lively onstage patter endear her to the cheering crowd at Paris’s famed Olympia concert hall for this 2015 show that showcases Gardot’s distinctively sultry vocals, intimate lyrics and bluesy, jazzy tunes.

Her beast of a band—seven players strong—brilliantly backs Gardot on everything from the opener “Don’t Misunderstand” to the transcendent improvisations that give the extended closer “It Gonna Come” its flavor. The image and sound are top-notch.

Mustang

(Cohen Media)

Turkish-French director Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s beautifully observed, deeply personal drama about five young sisters whose lives are upended by the adults in their family as they get older, more mature and more interested in boys and sexuality: a no-no in their conservative Muslim family living in rural Turkey.

Not only does director-writer Erguven insightfully place her heroines in the intersection of religion and family—parents still make their children’s choices for marriage—but she also gets incredibly real, joyously alive portrayals by the splendid young actresses playing the sisters. The film (one of the best debut features in recent years) looks luminous in hi-def; extras comprise interviews with the five actresses and Erguven’s short, A Drop of Water.

Pride and Joy—Alligator Records

(MVD)

The history of Alligator Records, the blues-based record label begun by Bruce Iglauer in Chicago in 1971, is recounted in director Robert Mugge’s lively and informative 1992 documentary in which Iglauer and associates discuss Alligator’s fascinating history, along with showing several of the label’s singers doing what they best.

Much of the running time is smartly given over to live performances by such Alligator staples as Koko Taylor, Lonnie Brooks and Elvin Bishop during a marathon concert that was part of its 20^th anniversary tour. The film looks decent on Blu; extras comprise 10 additional audio performances from the tour.

Susan Slept Here

(Warner Archive)

This mild 1954 comedy is definitely a relic of its era: Dick Powell plays a bachelor screenwriter in Hollywood who, after he has a 17-year-old girl foisted on him, marries the girl for convenience—eventually, however, there’s something more to their relationship.

Director Frank Tashlin adds needed color (figuratively and literally) to this ungainly contrivance, which even includes silly musical sequences; Powell and Debbie Reynolds have an offbeat chemistry as the couple, while Anne Francis is typecast as Powell’s glamorous girlfriend. The movie looks terrific in this new color hi-def transfer.

War & Peace

(Anchor Bay/Weinstein Co)

Although Leo Tolstoy’s massive historical novel is near-impossible to adapt—aside from two flawed big-screen versions, there’s also a superb but patchy Prokofiev opera based on it—this British TV mini-series is an intelligent attempt to give a sense of the breadth, if not the depth, of the book. The locales, sets and costumes provide the sumptuous trappings for the characters whose travails are dramatized throughout this mini-series’ eight hours.

The cast is generally competent—Lily James, James Norton and Stephen Rea are quite good, while Paul Dano and Gillian Anderson are less so—and the entire enterprise is, ultimately, an absorbing soap opera. The hi-def transfer is excellent; extras are several short featurettes.

DVD of the Week

Forbidden Hollywood—Volume 10

(Warner Archive)

For its tenth—and, it has been announced, final—volume of studio films made before the Hays Code decided, once and for all, what could and could not be shown on American movie screens, Warner Archive has collected this strong quintet of crime dramas and dark character studies.

Among the five rough-hewn gems, most notable are Lionel Barrymore as a district attorney hoping to get away with murder in 1931’s Guilty Hands and Barbara Stanwyck torn between two lovers in 1933’s Ever in My Heart.

Utah Symphony Celebrates 75th Anniversary at Carnegie Hall

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 04 May 2016 02:51; Written by Jack Angstreich

Thierry Fischer

On the evening of Friday, April 29th, an excellent concert was given at Carnegie Hall by the fine musicians of the Utah Symphony — which is celebrating it’s 75th anniversary this year — under the assured direction of Thierry Fischer (plus some buzz in the air as the glamorous Mitt Romney could be seen in the audience).

The program opened with a graceful account of Franz Joseph Haydn’s appealing Symphony No. 96, “The Miracle”. This was followed by the New York premiere of the not uninteresting Switch, a percussion concerto by Andrew Norman. Within the first couple of minutes, percussionist extraordinaire, Colin Currie bounded out of the second row in the audience and ran onto the stage, athletically meeting the considerable logistical challenges posed by the work, which was effectively played by the ensemble. The young-looking and handsome composer took the stage for a bow (his new piano concerto was played by the New York Philharmonic in December while another work, Play: Level 1, received its New York premiere with Los Angeles Philharmonic at Geffen Hall in March).

The concert reached its apotheosis at the outset of its second half with a thrilling performance of a selection of excerpts from Sergei Prokofiev’s dazzling ballet score, Romeo and Juliet, displaying to the fullest the superior musicianship of this orchestra. The program closed strongly with a confident reading of Béla Bartók’s haunting Suite from his ballet score for The Miraculous Mandarin.

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