Word: frenched
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2000
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Director Nina Sawyer '01 and her company were blessed by remarkably gorgeous weather for their outdoor production of French existentialist Jean Anouilh's Antigone, and by and large the cast rises to the elements' implicit challenge in this production, one that starts slowly but gains momentum as it marches toward its foretold conclusion. Indeed, Anouilh's 1942 Antigone is not about suspense, but about the inevitability of playing roles. For Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, this means performing burial rites for her slain brother Polynices, who has been declared a traitor of the state and therefore forbidden those rites. For Antigone...
Additionally, elitist though it may be to say, performing the play in English instead of French automatically robs some of the truest life of Anouilh's words. Sawyer has not done a tremendous amount to reinvigorate the script and turn her production from a fine staged reading into an evocative drama. This Antigone is rich in ideas but never comes around to engaging the senses...
...production's aesthetic line is strictly followed with regard to sound, light and set design. The stage's austerity fits the well-known frugality of the historical George III. Interestingly, the sets seemed to be inspired by French republican and restoration art, rather than by the Georgian tastes of early 19th century Britain. In consonance, the confrontation between Pitt and Fox in parliament was staged in the fashion of an Assemble Nationale, with the two leaders held by spotlights in the center of mural-size doors. Costumes and make-up accentuate the distinction between a humanized George...
...virtuosity and finger agility. Written both to alleviate a Count Kaiserling of his nightly insomnia and as a set of "keyboard exercises," the work has become one of the cornerstones of the repertoire, its aria instantly recognizable to many. Among the aria and 30 variations are nine canons, a French overture, fugues and a quodlibet...
...French garrison provides a level of security unavailable in Aden, which...