The Week (and more) in Review
Gosh, it's been a while since I've updated with actual life events! (Memes and political rants don't count.)
The day after the Inauguration, I had dinner with friends and we went to see Desire Under the Elms at the Goodman Theatre, part of their O'Neill festival, and yet another in the Brian Dennehy/Robert Falls collaboration. Although the dialect was a bit heavy-going at the beginning of the play, I thought it was extremely powerful, and the acting, particularly Dennehy and Carla Cugino as Abby, was excellent.
Dennehy would open his veins for a Broadway audience, and he would open them just as far for the supporters of a community theater in rural North Dakota. It really doesn’t make much difference to him.
Dennehy is an actor in the old style. It is by no means an affectation or image. It is simply the way Dennehy does business, even if it is no longer the typical way of doing business.
“I don’t understand why an actor would want to do a role 60 times and then quit,” he says, shaking his head at the very notion of the Hollywood-like perfidy that appears to be in vogue. “I did Willy Loman 200 times before I understood him.”
Sitting in the next seat, Falls smiles fondly at his indispensable muse. Even as Dennehy was getting to know Willy, Falls’ brilliantly conceptual production of the Arthur Miller classic was ricocheting around London and New York.
For Dennehy, O’Neill is a mountain to be climbed, whatever the range. And when he’s halfway up that mountain-as he was last week-he is in some emotional and psychological distress.
“I’m in that hell right now where you’ve done a lot but not enough,” he says, his voice sounding more like a growl. “It’s a bear trap. It gets you by the leg. You’re bleeding. You’re in pain. You go back to the apartment, throw the script in the corner and say thank God that’s over for eight hours and then you turn off the TV and go and get the script and go back to work.”
Even by O’Neill standards, “Desire” is a tough play-and the mercurial, tortured Ephraim Cabot is a rough role. “It is a play about fundamental human truth,” Dennehy declares, brow furrowing. “Power. Acquisition. And the American phenomenon-and it is an American phenomenon-of sex being all wrapped up in that.”
That’s one side of it. Then Dennehy spills the other.
“Thank God I have this at 70. Thank God I have this town. Thank God I have this theater.”
Last Saturday's Collecting 2.0 workshop was at the Richard Gray Gallery, quite a contrast to the gallery we were at a week earlier. This one is on the Magnificent Mile, high up in the John Hancock Center, all very hushed and formal. But we had fun! After a talk by one of the gallery owners and some auction insight from a representative of Sotheby's, we had a mock auction. They'd chosen three items sold over the last year or so, two Rothkos and one Calder, and the idea was that we would bid on them, and the person who came closest to the actual price, and stopped, won. Though I didn't win, I did pretty good. I stopped far to soon on the first Rothko, underbidding by about $2 million. But I only stopped short about $200,000 on the second, and $25,000 on the Calder. People bid way too high on those last. I think the difference between prices realized at an art auction in November, 2007, and those realized in November, 2008, didn't register. (It's great fun bidding on expensive art when you aren't actually going to have to write a check!)
Before the workshop, I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which is just a couple of blocks away, to see the Calder exhibit, which was fabulous, but not in the best space. The room it's in is too small and the ceiling is too low. But it's good stuff, nevertheless. While I was there, I also checked out Theaster Gates' installation, Temple Exercises, works by Kara Walker (whom I have discovered is going to be at the University of Chicago in May), and a show called USA Today, works of contemporary American artists from the MCA collection. One of the pieces was a video work called Cornered, by Adrian Piper, in which the artist sits at a desk, announces she is black, and the proceeds to talk about how and why we/she react to that statement. On the wall are two birth certificates for her father, issued a couple of decades apart; one describes him as "octoroon", the other describes him as "white". It's rather heavy-handed, but resonated with me as I am in the midst of reading a biography of Belle da Costa Greene, the director of the Morgan Library for 25 years, who was a woman of color who lived as white, the early parts of which deal with the whole issue of the construct of race in this country.
Photography is not permitted in the galleries, but the staircase demanded to have pics taken (yes, that's a koi pond at the bottom):
Then I spent a lot of time browsing in the MCA's bookstore, and found something for my sister's birthday present, Victor Burleigh's Great Rock & Roll Street Art.
Sunday, I went up to Caroline's for brunch and socializing. I made a flourless chocolate cake as my contribution, which was, naturally, greatly appreciated.
Today, I interrupted Marissa's nap to take her to the vet, and she has been officially pronounced in excellent health. I brought her home, left the cat carrier on the floor in the back room, and Lilith is now ensconced within it. Silly thing!
The day after the Inauguration, I had dinner with friends and we went to see Desire Under the Elms at the Goodman Theatre, part of their O'Neill festival, and yet another in the Brian Dennehy/Robert Falls collaboration. Although the dialect was a bit heavy-going at the beginning of the play, I thought it was extremely powerful, and the acting, particularly Dennehy and Carla Cugino as Abby, was excellent.
Dennehy would open his veins for a Broadway audience, and he would open them just as far for the supporters of a community theater in rural North Dakota. It really doesn’t make much difference to him.
Dennehy is an actor in the old style. It is by no means an affectation or image. It is simply the way Dennehy does business, even if it is no longer the typical way of doing business.
“I don’t understand why an actor would want to do a role 60 times and then quit,” he says, shaking his head at the very notion of the Hollywood-like perfidy that appears to be in vogue. “I did Willy Loman 200 times before I understood him.”
Sitting in the next seat, Falls smiles fondly at his indispensable muse. Even as Dennehy was getting to know Willy, Falls’ brilliantly conceptual production of the Arthur Miller classic was ricocheting around London and New York.
For Dennehy, O’Neill is a mountain to be climbed, whatever the range. And when he’s halfway up that mountain-as he was last week-he is in some emotional and psychological distress.
“I’m in that hell right now where you’ve done a lot but not enough,” he says, his voice sounding more like a growl. “It’s a bear trap. It gets you by the leg. You’re bleeding. You’re in pain. You go back to the apartment, throw the script in the corner and say thank God that’s over for eight hours and then you turn off the TV and go and get the script and go back to work.”
Even by O’Neill standards, “Desire” is a tough play-and the mercurial, tortured Ephraim Cabot is a rough role. “It is a play about fundamental human truth,” Dennehy declares, brow furrowing. “Power. Acquisition. And the American phenomenon-and it is an American phenomenon-of sex being all wrapped up in that.”
That’s one side of it. Then Dennehy spills the other.
“Thank God I have this at 70. Thank God I have this town. Thank God I have this theater.”
Last Saturday's Collecting 2.0 workshop was at the Richard Gray Gallery, quite a contrast to the gallery we were at a week earlier. This one is on the Magnificent Mile, high up in the John Hancock Center, all very hushed and formal. But we had fun! After a talk by one of the gallery owners and some auction insight from a representative of Sotheby's, we had a mock auction. They'd chosen three items sold over the last year or so, two Rothkos and one Calder, and the idea was that we would bid on them, and the person who came closest to the actual price, and stopped, won. Though I didn't win, I did pretty good. I stopped far to soon on the first Rothko, underbidding by about $2 million. But I only stopped short about $200,000 on the second, and $25,000 on the Calder. People bid way too high on those last. I think the difference between prices realized at an art auction in November, 2007, and those realized in November, 2008, didn't register. (It's great fun bidding on expensive art when you aren't actually going to have to write a check!)
Before the workshop, I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which is just a couple of blocks away, to see the Calder exhibit, which was fabulous, but not in the best space. The room it's in is too small and the ceiling is too low. But it's good stuff, nevertheless. While I was there, I also checked out Theaster Gates' installation, Temple Exercises, works by Kara Walker (whom I have discovered is going to be at the University of Chicago in May), and a show called USA Today, works of contemporary American artists from the MCA collection. One of the pieces was a video work called Cornered, by Adrian Piper, in which the artist sits at a desk, announces she is black, and the proceeds to talk about how and why we/she react to that statement. On the wall are two birth certificates for her father, issued a couple of decades apart; one describes him as "octoroon", the other describes him as "white". It's rather heavy-handed, but resonated with me as I am in the midst of reading a biography of Belle da Costa Greene, the director of the Morgan Library for 25 years, who was a woman of color who lived as white, the early parts of which deal with the whole issue of the construct of race in this country.
Photography is not permitted in the galleries, but the staircase demanded to have pics taken (yes, that's a koi pond at the bottom):
Then I spent a lot of time browsing in the MCA's bookstore, and found something for my sister's birthday present, Victor Burleigh's Great Rock & Roll Street Art.
Sunday, I went up to Caroline's for brunch and socializing. I made a flourless chocolate cake as my contribution, which was, naturally, greatly appreciated.
Today, I interrupted Marissa's nap to take her to the vet, and she has been officially pronounced in excellent health. I brought her home, left the cat carrier on the floor in the back room, and Lilith is now ensconced within it. Silly thing!