kenneth turan's review
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-road25-2009nov25,0,6229500.story
describes my reaction nearly to a T, except that i thought the kid seemed to come straight out of "shane"but mortenson has one great face, and charlize is someone to fall in love with, deeply , that kind of face, and the art direction is pretty interesting, but the film lacked the courage of its monotony, so i stayed 3/4 through before heading out back into the rain.xx
All that comes to mind after reading Patrick Healy's piece on Seattle Theater:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/travel/escapes/20seattle.html?scp=2&sq=escapes&st=cse
'What tourist board booster brainwashed you or paid you off ," whence what Blarney Stone did you crawl out from undee to write that piece of garbaage?
I have been here 15 years, during that time a host of small theaters has gone down:
1] The AHA which did first rate American writers before anyone else here did them, the nail in their Coffin was my translation of Tankred Dorst's FERNANDO KRAPP WROTE ME THIS LETTER
2] The BATHHOUSE THEATER where a premier theater man, Arne Zaslove did no end of wonderful things, both foreign and domestic and some famous Shakespeare with Rock.
3] The EMPTY SPACE, in its third and last incarnation which had been the premiere venue for avant garde work during the 70s and 80s, founded by a first rater director, Burke Walker.
4] THEATER FOR A NEW CITY [recently revived on a store front], John Kazanian's gig, chiefly for the development of one person shows, his specialty.
5] The Ethnic Cultural Center I think it was called which specialized in cross ethnic work.
And there are others.
This is the provinces, the audience giggles easily, they applaud the sets.
Bart did some fine work, but by no means entirely; solid work that did not push a single envelope.
The Rep has had a succession of losers as Artistic Directors after Sullivan left.
Kurt Beatty is basically a forever second fiddle to artistic directors who inherited ACT when it was about to
go under and the new director decided not to come. I recall that I was supposed to do an American Version of Brecht's MOTHER COURAGE for him around Mrs. Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld decided on some forceful imperialist ventures. Kurt moaned oh if there's one play I want to do... Of course
he chickened out. I put in about a week's worth of work refamiliarizing myself with all the versions. The Berliner Ensemble was my introduction to theater, back in 1957 in Berlin. M..C.I premiered in Zurich in 1942 I think, hasn't been done in Seattle at a major venue. A fine director,
Steve Pearson, did it cabaret style at the UW Drama School - dreadful job.
Get a life fellow! Get a life NY Times. So many good writers
and some Healys!
