In case you cared, Shakespeare's deathday/birthday was a few days ago. Some people seem to think he was killed by a giant grasshopper. We call these people the Anti-Stratfordian's, 'Stratfordian' here meaning: common sense, logic, any knowledge of Shakespeare not gained from Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet. While no one REALLY knows how he died, there is this old tale: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted." While it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, it certainly seems grasshopper free. Interesting side note: Andy Hicks Flogging Day is coming up soon.

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posted by Japhy at 4/25/2002 12:33:00 AM || #

Theatre: Blue Surge For thousands of college students in their senior year, now is the time they turn their heads from halcyon days of dorm parties and MTV’s Undressed marathons and turn their heads to the real Real World. You know the one where you have to get a real job and pay bills and what’s that? You were a communications major? Well, cheer up and go see Rebecca Gilman’s Blue Surge, now playing at the Public Theater, where you can see people who are (probably) a lot worse off than you realize just how very poor they are. Curt (Joe Murphy) and his buffoonish partner Doug (Steve Key) are cops setting out to bust the local whorehouse. When the hookers cry entrapment, the charges are dropped and natch, the guys ask the girls out. The only problem here is that our hero, Kurt, happens to be engaged to Ms. Artsy WASP 2002, Beth (Amy Landecker, who’s talent is wasted here) and is hoping, we gather, to move up the social ladder. The Class War is the heart of this play. Kurt wants to bring teenage prostitute Sandy (Rachel Miner) up from the proverbial gutter, while Beth, inspired by her ‘artistic values’ wants to bring Kurt out of his middle class tedium. In sharp counterpoint to the social climbing threesome Doug and his hooker wife Heather (Colleen Werthmann) are poor, but accepting of their lot in life and so, achieve happiness. What makes this play so rich is Rachel Miner’s nuanced performance. There is nervousness to her performance that belies the jaded persona her character is trying to affect. Her Sandy is a girl trying to be a much older woman, a teenager forced to be an adult by circumstance and with Gilman’s authentic dialogue, she weaves magic with her jittery white-trash accent. That a rising star fills the starring role, however, is not enough to ignore the flaws in this production. Joe Murphy’s Curt is no match for Miner’s brilliance and there seems to be too much emphasis on the ‘dumb’ in his ‘dumb schmuck’ shtick. Curt’s fiancée is such a minor character that she would be better off left out, her scenes feel like compulsory snippets of what life is like on the right side of the tracks. In addition some of the production values in this show are inexplicable. While it is explained away within the play, Richard Woodbury’s sound design, seems determined to remind you, ‘These girls are hookers!’ with it’s clichéd (and frankly, tired) saxophone solos and Walt Spangler’s set is lorded over by a suspended black monolith straight out of 2001 for no particular reason. Robert Falls’ direction is dead on. The show is as snappy as a fresh pickup line. Go see this show while it lasts, it’s subtly disturbing and lingers with you long after you’ve left the theatre. While the message: “It sucks to be poor” isn’t exactly the stuff of greatness, it’s worth the $45 bucks- especially if you appreciate the irony in that. Blue Surge is now playing at The Public Theatre’s Anspacher Theater (425 Lafayette Street). Tickets are $45 and may be purchased by phoning Tele-Charge at 212.239.6200

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posted by Japhy at 4/25/2002 12:22:00 AM || #

Our Sharon-a? Israel’s PM has all but told the U.S, ‘We don’t need you’…and he’s right. There is a fantastic article about Ariel Sharon in Salon today. As Colin Powell leaves the Mid-East region this week, having failed to negotiate even so much as a cease-fire between the Israeli’s and Palestinians, Americans may want to rethink our relationship with Israel. Sure, there's the realpolitik strategy of keeping a toehold in the Land of Oil, but as they say, 'with friends like these...'. Much of the world condemns the U.S for being wildly biased towards Israel. And we are. We pay Egypt 60 million dollars a year just so they won't go to war with the country. We have helped make the Israeli army one of the best in the world. It is not a timid little land trapped among cutthroat Arabs, but a 900 pound gorilla armed to the teeth that in the past few weeks has all but dared the Arab world to attack it so that it could oblitearate and annex the whole region. Perhaps Americans fear criticizing Israel for fear of looking anti-Semetic. I have no quarrel with the Jewish people. To do so would be ridiculous, never mind racist. I can, and do, however have serious problems with the administration of Israel. The two are not the same and while the pro-Israel lobby routinely talks of the current conflict in near Biblical terms, it can not hide what is essentially a super power beating up on a loose, though commited , group of people, who, let's face have a pretty good claim to the land they've been living on for the past thousand years or so. We've allowed Sharon to co-opt September 11th as an excuse to finally wipe out what the Palestinians. He is not targetting just the suicide bombers in his mass arrests and shootings, but the people of Palestine. For him, the only solution to the Palestinian problem is to dismantle the PLO and make it powerless and he's succeeding. When Sharon has finally destroyed all the Palestinian infrustructure, he will be able to easily take control of the whole region, 'for it's own protection' no doubt. Certainly the attacks can have no other desired outcome for Israel. For, if they leave even a fragment of Palestinian authority in Palestine, the seething hatred kindled by carnage wrought by Sharon's war machine will spur on more attacks from Palestine. As long as Israel convinces the U.S that Palestine is the instigator, despite Sharon's goading and inciteful trip to the Dome of the Rock last year and despite the escalating and disproportionate attacks on Palestine, it can act with impunity. Sharon believes that the U.S will sit silently by- and he's been right. I don’t condone Palestinian terrorism. Suicide bombing is wrong, but so is arresting 5,000 civilians and killing hundreds more Why does the Arab world hate the U.S. so much? A large part of it has to do with our unwavering support with Israel. Israel is seen as the 51st state of the Union and so Israel's actions become our own. In the past, we have stood by and taken a few punches for the country, but should we continue? Is Sharon's fight our own and at the end of the day, does the U.S want the blood of refugees on its hands?

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posted by Japhy at 4/17/2002 11:22:00 PM || #

Music Review Spin, Darren Hayes Darren Hayes’ debut solo album, Spin is such a fantastically well crafted, fun and sexy pop album that it single handedly rescues the genre from hands of Britney and Justin and exposes the teen sensations for what they are: kids. This is far and away the most exciting pop album in years. Formerly the lead singer of the incredibly successful Aussie duo, Savage Garden, Darren has created something of a pop revelation in these bland times, a genuinely fun pop album for adults. Amid the lush orchestrations and terrifyingly infectious hooks is a voice as iconic as Prince or Michael Jackson. There is an indescribable quality to the breathless moans and falsetto calls of Hayes’ voice that sexualizes a style of music neutered by Wacko-Jacko’s antics and the Backstreet Boys’ toothless pleas of wanting it ‘that way’. Where the boy bands make their millions by being coy, Hayes has no problem with beginning tracks with the sounds of women in sexual ecstasy (Dirty) or taking on the persona of a sexual predator (Creepin’ Up on You). This is not to say that Spin is a raunch-fest, it’s just not sanitized. You get the distinct impression that his screaming fans are probably not swooning to just get an autograph. The first single release, Insatiable, is a seductive fusion of R&B and Spanish guitar that is far and away the best love ballad in the past five years. With lines like ‘every once in a while, even though I dig alternative style, occasionally I can be caught dancing to Britney’, Hayes writes lyrics that are not only razor sharp, but funny, downright witty. While some tracks occasionally verge on overkill (there are so may beats on Heart Attack that you can’t help but tune out), the overall effort is top notch, making this a far more solid album than well, Invincible, Celebrity or Britney. If you want to do the whole ‘screaming hysterical girl’ thing and not be secretly faking it, Darren Hayes is your man. IN A NUTSHELL: Most pop albums are guilty pleasures. This one is guilt free. Darren Hayes is the clear heir to the King of Pop’s crown.

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posted by Japhy at 4/12/2002 11:30:00 PM || #

Theatre: The Smell of the Kill The moment the lights of the Helen Hayes Theatre come up on Michele Lowe’s new comedy, The Smell of the Kill, is a revelation: David Gallo’s forced perspective set is the über-kitchen of your crowded Manhattan apartment’s dreams. Unfortunately, this Kohler catalog come to life is the best thing about this toothless vapid excuse of a comedy. The play is about three suburban hausfrau’s who take turns hosting their husbands (and former college roommates) monthly parlor golf games at their homes. They pass the time in the kitchen, drinking, gossiping and soothing their loudmouth husband’s egos. When the boys throw golf balls into the kitchen, the girls plop them into a bowl, throw whipped cream on top of them and serve them up as dessert. Each relationship is severely flawed in their own ways. One husband is a philanderer, the other controls his wife by checking in on her every half hour with a pager, and one is an embezzler who, in the face of losing everything he owns, buys a walk in freezer to store the carcasses of the deer he shoots. When the boys accidentally lock themselves in the freezer, the women are faced with the question, “Do we let them out?” In all fairness, this is a very funny play, but the joke is essentially a one-note affair. There are lots of gags with guns and sexy lingerie and the performances are top notch, especially Claudia Shear’s portrayal of Debra, the only character who seems to have a problem with offing her husband. Much of the play will probably show up in Best Actresses Monologues of 2002, but it’s no better and often far worse, than your average sitcom. I’m really at a loss as to how this play could make it to Broadway, especially when it turns out, at the end of the day, the women really do kill their husbands. (You can send the seventy dollars I just saved you to me care of japhy@hotmail.com.) Where is the suspense in a play where the characters do exactly what we were expecting them to do all along? This play doesn’t even inspire outrage. The husbands are clearly monsters and to ensure that we never feel even an ounce of compassion for them, they are never seen, but only heard off stage. My hats are off Patrick Garner and Mark Lotito, who play the hapless hubbies. I can only assume the reason they are in this play is because they lost a bet. Currently on Broadway there are some great plays, there are plays that almost achieve greatness, there are plays that are cringe-inducing and there are plays that inspire hatred on site. The Smell of the Kill stands alone in inducing an overwhelming shrug of indifference. The Smell of the Kill is now playing at the Helen Hayes Theatre (240 West 44th Street). Tickets are $ $45 - $70 and may be purchased by phoning Tele-Charge at 212.239.6200

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posted by Japhy at 4/10/2002 11:29:00 PM || #