Two Italian living legends together: Ferruccio Soleri, the greatest Arlecchino, and Carla Fracci, the greatest Giselle

 ballet, theatre  No Responses »
Sep 132012
 

Fer­ruc­cio Soleri (class of 1929) was the ori­ginal Arlec­chino in ’s legendary pro­duc­tion of Goldoni’s mas­ter­piece Ser­vant of Two Mas­ters (Arlec­chino ser­vitore di due padroni) for ’s Pic­colo Teatro. And he still is. He will be play­ing the role for the 53rd sea­son this year, and on tour in Argentina.

Here he is pic­tured with long-time friend and col­league (I wouldn’t reveal a lady’s age, but the two have 159 years between them!) whose with the remains a touch­stone in filmed bal­let performances.

Ferruccio Soleri Carla Fracci Two Italian living legends together: Ferruccio Soleri, the greatest Arlecchino, and Carla Fracci, the greatest Giselle… [con­tinue reading]

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Filippo Timi can be excellent, so he shouldn’t be anything less: Romeo and Juliet in Milan

 Italy, theatre  2 Responses »
Jul 212012
 

Timi Giulietta e Romeo RIvano Trabalza Studio 009 Filippo Timi can be excellent, so he shouldnt be anything less: Romeo and Juliet in MilanWhat to think of Fil­ippo Timi?

After the extraordin­ary suc­cess of his Amleto² ( squared) comes Giuli­ett’ e Romeo (a loose adapt­a­tion of ). There are just five char­ac­ters: the Nurse, Romeo, Juliet,  Mer­cu­tio and Cupid. Yes Cupid — it’s a very loose adaptation.

As Cupid, Timi comes on as though Jason Bieber had been styled by Pierre et Gilles, with blonde wig (cue ref­er­ences to Italian singer/dancer/ icon, Raf­faella Carrà) and rose-tinted glasses who, between shoot­ing clouds of red paper hearts into the air, mimes to Massimo Ranieri’s 60s hit Se bru­ciasse la città.

Timi appeared to have been plucked from a hol­i­day vil­lage enter­tain­ment, but his faith­ful fans nev­er­the­less rewar­ded him with shrieks, over-the-head applaud­ing, and hys­ter­ical laughter.… [con­tinue reading]

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More Ziegfeld folly! Can you still be a Follies girl at 105?

 ballet, cabaret, dance, theatre  No Responses »
Jul 142012
 

Doris Eaton Travis at 105 Ziefeld Follies More Ziegfeld folly! Can you still be a Follies girl at 105?Of course you can! Doris Eaton Travis was the last sur­viv­ing girl from the Ziegfeld Follies.

She joined the com­pany in 1918 at the age of 14, and in this pic­ture with her younger self is the remark­able Doris at 105.

She died a year after this photo was taken, in 2010.

In 1998 she returned ’s New Ams­ter­dam Theatre where she had first appeared in 1918, 80 years earlier. This time it was to par­ti­cip­ate in a bene­fit for Broad­way Cares/Equity Fights , and she con­tin­ued to par­ti­cip­ate in this annual event to the end of her life.

Her last time on the New Ams­ter­dam Theatre stage was just two weeks before her death. The next even­ing the lights of Broad­way were dimmed in her hon­our.… [con­tinue reading]

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Amleto² engulfed by the outsize personality of Filippo Timi

 theatre  1 Response »
Jul 142012
 

Timi in amleto photo by macilic Amleto² engulfed by the outsize personality of Filippo TimiFil­ippo Timi is a strange theatre beast indeed. An actor of power and fas­cin­a­tion who attacks his pro­jects fear­lessly, career­ing from com­edy to tragedy, from extreme camp­ness to rugged mas­culin­ity, from clas­sic to mod­ern in his unique and utterly engross­ing theatre creations.

His plays appear to be cas­ual exper­i­ments: he throws in a bit of everything just to see what might hap­pen. Timi knows exactly what will hap­pen, but is mas­ter­ful in giv­ing his audi­ence the impres­sion that it is wit­ness­ing a one-off event. His corpsing — which is de rigueur, as are his sly winks at the audi­ence to let them in on some secret — is prob­ably identical night after night, but it seems unplanned and unex­pec­ted. His ver­sat­ile voice wal­lows around in the lower octaves before shoot­ing up with a screech from Bed­lam, oh yes, and he can sing too.… [con­tinue reading]

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2,695 shows make this year’s Edinburgh Fringe the biggest ever. And the programme: 376 pages and weighs 605 grams!

 cabaret, comedy, music, theatre  No Responses »
Jun 012012
 

Educating Rita 2,695 shows make this years Edinburgh Fringe the biggest ever. And the programme: 376 pages and weighs 605 grams!A record num­ber of shows will be staged at this year’s Fringe, brush­ing off fears that the clash with the would harm the Fest­ival. A 6% increase on last year’s pro­gramme will see 2,695 shows take to theatres, pubs, nooks, cran­nies and gar­dens all over Scotland’s cap­ital in August with 47 coun­tries represented .

Kath Main­land, Chief Exec­ut­ive of the Edin­burgh Fest­ival Fringe Soci­ety said:

This is the Year of Cre­at­ive Scot­land and it is the year in which the world’s greatest sport­ing event, the Olympic and Para­lympic Games, hap­pens in Lon­don while the world’s greatest cul­tural event takes place in Edin­burgh. The Edin­burgh Fest­ival Fringe is still the first choice for per­formers, pro­du­cers, artists and cre­at­ors to come and tell their story; we are proud that the Fringe is still the place to bring your work, with oppor­tun­it­ies to amaze, enthral and excite audi­ences from both far away and close to home. … [con­tinue reading]

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John Malkovich’s World Theatre Day message

 theatre  8 Responses »
Mar 102012
 

john malkovich John Malkovichs World Theatre Day messageThe 50th annual World Theatre Day, which is March 27, will see  give the open­ing address which will make him the first Amer­ican actor to do so. He will deliver this year’s mes­sage at the headquar­ters of in Paris on March 22.

delivered the first World Theatre Day mes­sage in 1962, and the list of past World Theatre Day mes­sen­gers includes , Vaclav Havel, , Wole Soyinka, Eugene Ion­esco, Ellen Stew­art, Richard Bur­ton, Luchino Vis­conti, Pablo Neruda, Laurence Olivier and Arthur Miller.

Here’s what Malkovich will say:

I’m honored to have been asked by the Inter­na­tional Theatre Insti­tute ITI at UNESCO to give this greet­ing com­mem­or­at­ing the 50th anniversary of World Theatre Day.… [con­tinue reading]

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Antony Sher on self denial, his new play, and painting the characters he plays

 theatre  3 Responses »
Jan 152012
 

Ant­ony Sher, appear­ing in the National Theatre’s Trav­el­ling Light, talked to The Observer’s Tim Adams:

On self denial

“I was . Jew­ish. A white South African, and for dif­fer­ent reas­ons, I was ashamed of all those things.”

On fam­ily history

“My grand­par­ents all came from Lithuania to . My first novel, Middle­post, is a fic­tional account of that jour­ney. A few years after that was pub­lished, I man­aged to go to the par­tic­u­lar vil­lage from which my grand­par­ents had come in 1896. It was very mov­ing. I had hoped to find some traces of the Shers but you have to remem­ber that there was some­thing called the Holo­caust in between. All of which means, I sup­pose, that I have an invest­ment in this play.… [con­tinue reading]

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