Essays about Culture Page 237

The story ‘A Kestrel for a Hawk ‘is based around a boy called Billy Casper. The book shows us all how life was in the olden times. Billy is a strong, independent character who is continuously being treated considered unjustly. Billy is sure of one thing – he will never work down in the mines….

Conventional wisdom says “clothes make the man,” but can they also make the show? Vincent Zulo is a tailor for the theatre who has left his imprint on hundreds of productions here and abroad, from Broadway extravaganzas to the Barnum and Bailey Circus to modest two-character plays. Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman and Alec Baldwin have…

When the clerk in a Dublin bookstore discovered I was interested in William Butler Yeast’s plays, she confessed that she didn’t think much of the man. “Americans,” she said, “are more fond of him than we are.” But when she learned that James W. Flannery’s festival at the Abbey offered all five Cuchulain plays on…

Unofficially, and without ever planning it, the city of Seattle has become the site of an Alan Ayckbourn performance festival. Three theatres have independently slated Ayckbourn productions running into the fall, including Seattle Children’s Theatre’s Invisible Friends, and Intiman Theatre Company’s How the Other Half Loves. The major theatres have gotten into a slapjack game…

How do political plays function in an apolitical society? What is the purpose of art in a bankrupt culture? Steve Tesich ruminates on these questions with the weariness of on whose work is inseparable from the social context of its time. Alternately wry and wary as he discusses his most recent play, On the Open…

From Halo Wines’s first entrance as psychoanalyst Melanie Klein in the recent production Mrs. Klein at Washington’s Arena Stage, her costume said worlds about the character’s background and personality. With its somber palette, careful detailing and fine fabric, the beautiful clothing established this woman’s place as a renowned professional living in 1930s London. Paul Tazewell…

The fire is burning/ It lights up the sky/ From high on the rock/ Down into the sea/ It is taking the children/ It is eating the future/ Smother the fire/ Open your hearts. — The Song of Jacob Zulu The fire that rages through Tug Yourgrau’s powerful new play with music, unveiled this spring…

Actor Ruth Nelson is the recipient of the 1992 Zeisler Award for distinguished service to the nonprofit professional theatre. The award, established in 1986 by Actors Theatre of Louisville producing director Jon Jory and named for TCG’s executive director Peter Zeisler, is given annually by Theatre Communications Group to a director, designer, actor or administrator…

Escalating controversy leaves the Endowment in disarray Within just two weeks of assuming her position, the new acting chairman of the National Edowment for the Arts sparked a new round of controversy for the agency, creating a volatile atmosphere just as its annual congressional appropriations process was getting underway. Anne-Imelda Radice, who took over the…

I must confess that I am not a proper estimator of theatre in America because I see too few productions. But I have my own experience as reference as well as reports I get from writer, actor and director friends. It seems clear, now in 1992, that we are the end of something. Without indulging…