Off-Broadway, a wonderful,
intelligent, well acted play Informed
Consent, by Deborah
Zoe Laufer, is
a joint Primary Stages and Ensemble Studio
Theatre production at the Duke on 42nd
Street. A genetic anthropologist played by
an excellent Tina
Benko is
assigned to investigate why a tribe of
American Indians living in the Grand Canyon
suffer from diabetes. She persuades them to
have their blood analyzed, against their
tribal beliefs. She also writes articles and
gives lectures about other genetic problems.
This resulted in an actual law suit by the
tribe against Arizona State University. The
terrific five member cast, directed by Liesl
Tommy, make this play one of the
highlights of the season.
Mercury Fur, by Philip
Ridley, at the Pershing Square Signature
Center, is a production of the New Group. An
excellent eight member cast is directed by Scott
Elliott. It is a bleak, dystopian view
of the future. Two brother hold parties in a
dilapidated, abandoned apartment, and invite
six strange characters. They drink beer,
take drugs, and the scene turns violent. The
opening night party at Lightbox, 339 West
38th St, was much more pleasant with
delicious, healthy food and fine wine and
beer.
The 49th Mostly Mozart Festival continued
with a program of a Mozart symphony
and a Beethoven piano
concerto. Cristian
Macelaru conducted
the orchestra, that offered a superb
interpretation of Symphony
No. 39 in E-flat major, K.543, and Lars
Vogt was
the soloist in the Piano
Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58. Vogt
gave a brilliant, powerful performance of
the wonderful concerto. His rapid, skillful
playing was a joy to behold. It was the last
concert that I was able to attend, but the
six concerts, that I saw, were the highlight
of the summer season. The delightful Mostly
Mozart Festival gets better every year, and
I eagerly anticipate with pleasure the 50th.
MoMA is presenting Scorsese
Screens August 5-September 6. La
Ronde, by Max
Ophuls, France, 1950, is based on the
play by Arthur
Schnitzler. Like a carousel, the scenes
go round and round, with a prostitute
meeting a soldier, and the soldier dancing
with a chambermaid, and the chambermaid
seducing her young master, who in turn makes
love to a married woman, and so on, until we
arrive at the final scene with the
prostitute sleeping with an officer count. Anton
Walbrook narrates
the story, and the finest film actors in
France at that time appear in this
delightful film, including Simone
Signoret, Simone Simon, Daniel Gelin,
Danielle Darrieux and Gerard
Philipe.
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Le Plaisir, by
Max Ophuls, France, 1952, is three short stories
by Guy
de Maupassant. The first Le
Masque and
the third Le
Modele are
very short, and cynical. The first is about an
old man wanting to retain his youth, and the
third is love turning sour with a forced
marriage. The second one La
Maison Tellier is
a light hearted look at a brothel in a
provincial town. The actresses are wonderful,
including Madeleine
Renaud and Danielle
Darrieux, with Jean
Gabin stealing
the film as a French peasant.
The third film by Max Ophuls, France, 1953, Madame
de...(The Earrings of Madame de...)
is a moralistic tale. The wife (Danielle Darrieux)
of a general (Charles
Boyer) is in debt. She sells her diamond
earrings, which her husband gave her as a
wedding present, to a jeweler. She lies that she
has lost them. The little white lie has grave,
tragic consequences. The earrings begin a
journey to Constantinople and return to Paris
with an Italian diplomat (Vittorio
De Sica), who becomes enamored with Darrieux,
giving her the earrings as a gift. The three
lead actors are superb. The dialogue is
intelligent, and the twists to the plot are
riveting. It is considered one of the classics
of French films.
A commercial film When
Animals Dream, by Jonas
Alexander Arnby, Denmark, 2014, takes
place in small Danish fishing village. A young
girl (Sonia
Suhl) is suffering from abnormal hair growth
over her body, which will turn her into a
monster. She has just begun work at the local
fish factory, where her vicious co-workers
torment her. As she becomes more monstrous, she
will exact her violent revenge. It is a well
made, well acted, humorless film. It is strictly
for horror film fans.
A superb exhibition Sinatra:
An American Icon is on display at the New
York Public Library for the Performing Arts at
Lincoln Center. With it, films are being shown
in the Bruno Walter Auditorium. The
Detective, by Gordon
Douglas, USA, 1968, stars Frank
Sinatra as
a dedicated policeman. For twenty years, he has
been following his father in the same career.
The film opens with the murder of a homosexual,
and he pursues the possible murderer, getting
involved with the homosexual culture in New
York. The film is one of the first to show this
theme on film. We also see police brutality,
police corruption, and the involvement of
politicians. It is an unsentimental, realistic,
powerful film, with many wonderful actors like Ralph
Meeker, Robert Duvall and Jack
Klugman in
supporting roles, but Sinatra has never been
better in a serious role
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