The Arts Fuse Newsletter, January 9
January Coming Attractions, and a slew of book reviews: "Mood Machine", "Carceral Apartheid", "Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother," and "The Freaks Came Out to Write".
From The Editor's Desk:
Robert Brustein called Richard Foreman, who died at the age of 87 on January 4, “the Renaissance man of avant-garde American theater” and there is truth to that. In 1968 Foreman founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, which was dedicated to putting on the over 50 shows he wrote, designed, and directed — simultaneously flaky and brainy funhouse visions that won copious Obie Awards. He also penned, designed, and directed musical works in collaboration with composer Stanley Silverman and directed scripts by a range of dramatists, from the traditional (Mozart, Molière) to modernists early (Gertrude Stein, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Büchner) and late (Kathy Acker, Botho Strauss, Vaclav Havel, Philip Glass).
For Foreman, the art of the drama should be dedicated to overturning deadening conventionality. The director expounded his artistic credo in his invaluable 1992 essay/play collection Unbalancing Acts: Foundations for a Theater: “My plays are an attempt to suggest through example that you can break open the interpretations of life that simplify and suppress the infinite range of inner human energies; that life could be lived according to a different rhythm, seen through changed eyes.” Foreman’s experimentalism dissolved “mind-forg’d manacles” in order to nurture transformation.
In 2013 I reviewed Old-Fashioned Prostitutes, the last play Foreman produced and directed himself. I noted that “an element of pathos has crept into the machinery, a sense of curdled mortality, as if Foreman is beginning to acknowledge that his mental gears are grinding down, or at least they are in search of an inspiring anima.” I am fortunate to have encountered Foreman at the peak of his theatrical powers, and not only via the Ontological-Hysteric Theater. Foreman’s tinker-toyish staging of the American Repertory Theater’s 1988 production of Philip Glass’s opera The Fall of the House of Usher was a disappointment. But in 1990 I witnessed his glorious, primal scream presentation at Hartford Stage of Woyzeck, which is on my short list of most dazzling theatrical experiences ever. I remember reading, bemused, Brustein’s review of the production. He concluded that the evening was “a little bit too relentless.” Both Foreman and Büchner knew that, in the theater, it takes unyielding determination to break out of the prisonhouse of the commonplace.
—Bill Marx, Editor-in-Chief
Archive: From the Editor's Desk
Coming Attractions: Through January 20 — What Will Light Your Fire
Compiled by Arts Fuse Editor
Our expert critics supply a guide to film, visual art, theater, author readings, and music. More offerings will be added as they come in.
Book Review: “Mood Machine” — In the Mood for Manipulation
By Steve Provizer
Some rugged individualists may want to break out of the corporate cycle of dependency. If they do, they might even come across music they love that they would never have dreamed existed in the Spotify universe.
Visual Arts Review: “Lighting the Way — South Coast Women’s Lives, Labors, Love”
By Lauren Kaufmann
This exhibition offers much to appreciate about South Coast women, whose lives and accomplishments have played a crucial role in shaping the region.
Book Review: “Carceral Apartheid” — Prisons Made to Degrade
By Bill Littlefield
Brittany Friedman’s hope is that awareness of the racism she describes — in particular the abuse and corruption that she found in the prisons of California — will encourage readers to “take a critical view of society and examine the dark side of the state.”.
"Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother" -- He Wasn't an Underachiever
By Betsy Sherman
It seems every year the quality of feature films, especially those from mainstream studios, is getting worse, while that of documentaries is getting better.
Book Review: The Rise and Fall of a Multi-Vocal and Multi-Cultural Alternative — “The Village Voice”
By Debra Cash
Looking back, the writing in the Village Voice was as good as Tricia Romano’s subjects remember. She excerpts paragraphs and the language is fresh, distinctive, sometimes profane, and always worth reading. For those who wrote books, it will send you back to the bookshelf.
Help Keep The Arts Fuse Lit!
Precious few independent online arts publications make it to double digits. Please give us the resources the magazine needs to persevere at an essential cultural task.
Keep the Fuse lit and support our 70+ writers by making a donation.
The Arts Fuse also needs underwriting for the magazine to continue to grow.
And…tell your friends about the in-depth arts coverage you can’t get anywhere else.
Questions, comments, concerns?
Editor-in-Chief
Bill Marx
wmarx103@gmail.com
