Results tagged “nationaltheater”

In announcing their presentation of Moliere’s riff on the Don Juan legend, The National Theater of the United States of America promised “a production so authentic that it rivals in authenticity Moliere’s own 1665 production at the Palais-Royal in Paris.” As we learn in an opening monologue, their tongue-in-cheek press release prompted one critic to sniff, “I see there is no translator mentioned. I assume you will be doing it in the original French.” Ah, touché! But director Jonathan Jacobs’s idea of authenticity is to coax out the farcical spirit of the original with a sort of lavish amateurishness that proves irresistible from the show’s first beat.

In Samuel Beckett’s 1961 play Happy Days, a decidedly upbeat woman named Winnie spends Act One striving valiantly to make the best of her sticky situation: she’s irrevocably buried up to her waist in a “low mound.” True, Winnie has her reticent companion Willie for company, but she cheerily defies the barren void by holding forth for a seemingly nonexistent gathering of spectators. And Act Two finds Winnie still determined to make a go of it, despite a marked deterioration of her condition: she is now buried up to the neck. 47 years after Beckett finished it, the brutally funny and moving Happy Days is now the hot ticket at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Remember all the excitement surrounding the BAM Cultural District around, oh, 2001? Well, the NY Post is reporting that the previous plan for a theater and arts library has been expanded to include a dance studio, public park, museum and gallery, underground parking garage and residential housing.