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 UNESCO in 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. I will address my brief remarks to my fel­low theatre work­ers, peers and comrades.

“May your work be com­pel­ling and ori­ginal. May it be pro­found, touch­ing, con­tem­plat­ive, and unique. May it help us to reflect on the ques­tion of what it means to be human, and may that reflec­tion be blessed with heart, sin­cer­ity, candor, and grace. May you over­come adversity, cen­sor­ship, poverty and nihil­ism, as many of you will most cer­tainly be obliged to do.

“May you be blessed with the tal­ent and rigor to teach us about the beat­ing of the human heart in all its com­plex­ity, and the humil­ity and curi­os­ity to make it your life’s work. And may the best of you — for it will only be the best of you, and even then only in the rarest and briefest moments — suc­ceed in fram­ing that most basic of ques­tions, ‘how do we live?’ Godspeed.”

John Malkovich

via latimes.com - photo by Chris­tian Coigny / WENN

Share
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px John Malkovichs World Theatre Day message
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px John Malkovichs World Theatre Day message
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px John Malkovichs World Theatre Day message
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px John Malkovichs World Theatre Day message
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px John Malkovichs World Theatre Day message
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px John Malkovichs World Theatre Day message
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px John Malkovichs World Theatre Day message
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px John Malkovichs World Theatre Day message

Marie-Agnès Gillot in Milan for Pippo Delbono’s “After The Battle”

 ballet, music, theatre  No Responses »
Oct 142011
 

Dopolabattaglia Gillot FotoLorenzoPorrazzini Marie Agnès Gillot in Milan for Pippo Delbonos After The BattleThis is how The intro­duced Del­bono to its read­er­ship in an inter­view last year:

Part theater, part dance, part car­ni­val, part music, the works of Pippo Del­bono are hard to cat­egor­ize; they leave view­ers altern­ately elated, drained, shocked and thoughtful.

His com­pany, with which he has per­formed all his works since the 1980s, is also hard to cat­egor­ize. It includes Bobò, 73, whom Mr. Del­bono met at a men­tal asylum in 1996. Bobò was born deaf and with micro­cephaly and had been insti­tu­tion­al­ized for 45 years. Gian­luca Bal­laré a former pupil of Mr. Delbono’s mother, has Down’s Syn­drome. Nel­son Lar­ic­cia, ema­ci­ated, was for many years home­less. Mr. Del­bono refers to the com­pany as “family.”

Del­bono has had a cult fol­low­ing for years, though since two years ago when he won the pres­ti­gi­ous European Prize for New Theatre — whose pre­vi­ous recip­i­ents have included —  his fan base has been grow­ing rap­idly.… [con­tinue reading]

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Delicious
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Email
  • RSS

Julie Taymor and Peter Brook: on the same path but in opposite directions

 musical theatre, opera  No Responses »
Jul 252011
 

As ’s pared down charms New York, that jug­ger­naut of a musical, , ’s ex-project, rolls on, charm­ing few. The con­trast got Los Angeles Times’ Mark Swed thinking:

Flute Spiderman Julie Taymor and Peter Brook: on the same path but in opposite directions

Brook’s return to opera has been mainly to down­scale and refash­ion clas­sics — such as “Car­men,” Debussy’s “Pelléas et Mél­is­ande” and now his “Flute” — into intim­ate drama. Tay­mor, though, has taken the oppos­ite route.

She absorbed Asian influ­ences early and made theater in churches and other small spaces in New York for little money with devoted col­leagues. As she became bet­ter known, she found ways to bring her masks, her sense of ritual, her love of myth­o­logy bril­liantly into the main­stream. Her first major opera pro­duc­tion — Stravinsky’s “Oed­ipus Rex” in 1993 star­ring Jessye Nor­man, with Seiji Ozawa con­duct­ing in Japan — was one of the great mod­ern opera sta­gings.… [con­tinue reading]

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Delicious
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Email
  • RSS

As Peter Brook leaves Milan to continue his ‘farewell tour’ he reflects on his friend Samuel Beckett

 theatre  No Responses »
Mar 212011
 

samuel beckett 429x600 As Peter Brook leaves Milan to continue his farewell tour he reflects on his friend Samuel Beckett“I knew Beck­ett, and I found him a man of enorm­ous human­ity and humor and a really good com­pan­ion and friend. Noth­ing was more enjoy­able than to be with him, and of course, when I said this at the time, people couldn’t believe it.

They thought he was a sort of aus­tere and rather for­bid­ding, monk-like fig­ure who looked at everything with a dark eye and saw noth­ing but human misery, and to find this man who loved women and good drink and good food and lived in for choice, and was always every morn­ing in a café, where he would be sit­ting enjoy­ing him­self with vari­ous friends, this man was not that.’’

via Dir­ector Peter Brook reflects on Beck­ett and Dostoyevsky and the lives of their clas­sics on stage — The Boston Globe… [con­tinue reading]

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Delicious
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Email
  • RSS

Peter Brook bids farewell to Paris theatre after 36 years

 opera, theatre  No Responses »
Jan 032011
 

For lov­ers of Parisian , the first days of 2011 have a slightly mel­an­choly edge. On New Year’s Eve the hugely influ­en­tial Eng­lish dir­ector Peter Brook finally ended his 36-year ten­ure at the exper­i­mental Bouffes du Nord in the French capital.

Fri­day night’s per­form­ance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute was the 85-year-old’s last pro­duc­tion as the artistic head of a venue that has become syn­onym­ous with invent­ive, avant-garde work. As Brook’s opera heads off on a European tour that reaches Milan’s in Feb­ru­ary and London’s in March, the dir­ector is hand­ing over the reins at the Bouffes to two younger French­men: the former deputy head of ’s Opéra-Comique, Olivier Mantei, and the theatre entre­pren­eur and mod­ern music spe­cial­ist Olivier Poubelle.… [con­tinue reading]

Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Delicious
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Email
  • RSS