Word: stagecraft
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...political persecution--has finally made it to CD in a splendid live recording from last year's Spoleto Festival. The cast is solid; Richard Hickox's conducting, superb. Successfully premiered on Broadway in 1950 (yes, Broadway used to take such chances), The Consul is a little masterpiece of musical stagecraft whose grimly effective score and libretto haven't lost any of their punch--or relevance--in this ghastly age of ethnic cleansing...
...beauty. Piping classical music brings out a gracile quatro of stage hands between acts one and two: They lay out light-cobalt platforms which in turn absorb a dull, icy lighting scheme. As the A.R.T.'s actors quickly sketch their tragedy (an uber-fable about ambition and hubricguilt), its stagecraft is relentlessly Scandinavian, so that the dark, philosophically neurotic A.R.T. paradigm feels like nothing more than atypical (or stereotypical) Norwegian aesthetic...
Fosse may be glitzy, but it is also an inevitable hit, a galvanizing eruption of energy, panache and arrogantly sure-footed stagecraft that comes at a time when theatrical dance is in the doldrums. There hasn't been anything like it in years--10 years, to be exact, for it was in 1989 that Jerome Robbins put his ballet career on hold to direct Jerome Robbins' Broadway, a song-and-dance spectacular that theater buffs still recall with awe. The comparison is inescapable: Fosse was the only other Broadway choreographer with anything like Robbins' stylistic individuality and clarity of purpose...
...Gaunt and hairless, the King lectured the leaders and their aides. "You can't afford for this to fail," he said. "You owe this to your people, to your children, to future generations." For an hour afterward, his eloquence lifted the mood. When it waned, Clinton tried his own stagecraft. Patient and receptive so far, the President stormed out of the room just after midnight, looking at no one. "That was a powerful moment," says one of his aides. "It pushed all the leaders back on their heels...
...Clinton would stick to his denials and be persuasive in his testimony: "You ever known Bill Clinton to be scared of 12 people?" asked one. "All I've known of Bill Clinton is, 'Hey, I can convince any audience.'" But that was before Monica pulled off a bit of stagecraft that surprised even some who thought they knew everything she had. Just hours after setting the date to talk, the White House saw on the news that when Monica appeared at Starr's office that morning, she brought in her duffel bag not only her tapes of answering-machine messages...