February 2000

Brooklyn Academy of Music 2000 Spring Season BAMcinematek Brooklyn Philharmonic 651 ARTS

Saint Clair Cemin, L'lntuition de L'lnstant, 1995

BAM 2000 Spring Season is sponsored by

PHILIP MORRIS ~lA6(8IU COMPANIES INC. B~~II Stag~hill

Contents • February 2000 Glass Frames 8 Philip Glass has conquered all genres, but his film scores-for movies old and new­ occupy a special place. By Mark Swed .

Eternal Weill 34 It's very clear, during this centennial of Kurt Weill's birthday, that the composer of Threepenny Opera is here to stay. By Michael Feingold .

Program 17 Upcoming Events 55 BAMdirectory 59

SA 1\/1 Co\/pr Artist

Saint Clair Cemin Saint Clair Cemin was bom in Cruz Alta , Brazil, in 1951. He studied at the Ecole Nationale L'lntuition de L'lnstant Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris, France. He lives in New York City. 1995 Painted wood Cemin's sculpture has been exhibited worldwide, including at the Hirshhom Museum and 97' x 91 ' x 36' Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Museo de Arte Contemporary, Monterey, Mexico; Califomia Center for the Arts Museum , Escondido, CA; Centro Cultural For BAMart information Light, Rio de Janiero, Brazil; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham , AL; The Arts Club contact Deborah Bowie at of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Stadische Kunsthalle, DOsseldorf, Germany; The Fredrik Roos Museum, Malmo, Sweden; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Whitney Museum 718.636.4111 ext. 380 of American Art Biennial , New York, NY; Centro AtlanticO de Arte Medema, Las Palmas, Grand Canary Island; Documenta IX, Kassel, Germany; 22nd Biennial Intemational, Funda~o de sao Paolo; Galleria Communale d'Arte Medema, Bologna, Italy; Fogg Art Museum , Cambridge, MA; and the Kunsthalle, Basel, Switzerland . His work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Paris; Rooscum, Stockholm; the Broad Foundation, Los Angeles. He has executed many private and public commissions including the Reston Town Center, Reston, VA, and the Fountain House, New York City. In 1995 he received the Biennial Award from the Ueno Royal Museum and the Hakone Open-Air Museum in Japan. A major monograph will be published on his work, and a book of his writings will be published in 2000. In addition, the first volume of his catalogue raisonne is now being prepared. 4 Philip Glass discovered his musical Kundun, Martin Scorsese's celebrated 1997 film about the Dalai Lama , opens with a close-up of self while composing a film score, a beautiful mandala painted in sand. Tibetan and has since created a formidable cymbals crash, oceanic chords rumble deep down in the throats of Gyuto monks, and those body of cinematic work. magnificent Tibetan' horns that are taller than a By Mark Swed. man roar their roar. On top of that is a glassy high pitch of synthetic electronic timbre, Philip Glass put it there. And on top of that he added layers of comforting woodwind arpeggios. Its sound is unmistakably Glass, and with vivid effi­ ciency it illuminates the magnificent cosmic spirit of the film. ~

Koyaanisqatsi

8 Bent, a film from the same year, opens in the from the cinema nothing less than a whole new same era but in a world as far from Lhasa as hell performance medium . is from heaven. The scene is a gay cabaret in decadent Berlin just as the Nazis have begun to The range is extraordinary, from collaborating put their clamps on such society. Lowered down with Ravi Shankar on Conrad Rooks' 1966 on a trapeze, an almost ghoulishly ravaged singer underground classic, Chappaqua, to the new in drag croons a sinister song, "The Streets of string quartet score Glass wrote for the Kronos Berlin," accompanied by foreboding piano arpeg­ Quartet to accompany Tod Browning's Dracula. gios. The singer is Mick Jagger, and this song, Well known , of course, is the trilogy of non-narra­ too, is unmistakably by Glass, although now it tive Godfrey Reggio films (and centerpieces of alerts us, with vivid efficiency, to the cosmic ter­ BAM's series)-Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, ror that is to follow. Anima Mundi-in which music and image enliven environment. Another trilogy-OrpMe, No composer has approached the cinema from La Belle et la Bete, Les Enfants Terribles- turns as many different angles as has Philip Glass. three Cocteau films into radically novel forms of Indeed, his middle name is-or it should be-­ opera (the first is a staged work with screenplay film. The alliteration with the first name sounds as libretto; the second, a new score sung along good, as BAM has recognized by titling its four­ with film in live performance; the third, a part series "Philip on Film." The context with the dance/opera adaptation). Then there are the cele­ last name sounds right, as well, if we think of brated near-operatic narrative films: Paul film as a looking glass into new worlds external Schrader's 1985 Mishima and Kundun , where and internal. For Philip (Film) Glass has sought music is used radically as a major element of the

Dracula Photo by Photofest continued on page 14 continued from page 10 film. And finally, there is the more conventional­ the Indian concept of rhythmic cycles and a but, thanks to the music, no longer really whole new way of organizing music, which led conventional-soundtrack. Glass' swirling, him to find his characteristic Minimalist voice. immutable music makes Vietnam War violence a haunting horror in Hamburger Hill, and it all too Throughout the 1970s, Glass developed a highly creepily underscores the cinematic horror of Can­ abstract style based upon repeated melody and dyman, to say nothing of Holocaust horror in chord sequences; constant additions and sub­ Bent or the lOW-level gloom of The Secret Agent. tractions, however, lead to metrical flux. It was music that did not tell you how to feel yet got There is a new adjective in the critical vocabu­ along remarkably well with external emotion, lary: "performative." It's a pretentious term, for action, and image. Personally, the composer, the most part, but maybe now it's found a happy friendly and inquisitive, also got along. Indeed, fit. For what Glass has done with film is make it Glass became a composer uniquely poised to not quite performance art but rather performable turn his work toward as many different artistic art, and in return, the film experience has had its situations as he could. It suited theater as back­ own crucial impact on his music. Glass became ground, but in their 1976 masterpiece, Einstein Glass because of film. While a music student in on the Beach, Glass and Robert Wilson invented Paris under the strict contrapuntal discipline of a new kind of opera in which music and image Nadia Boulanger, he took a job transcribing could serve as precise equals, neither dictating to Shankar's music for Chappaqua-a self-indulgent the other. drug fantasy that happened to include a number of 1960s icons, among them Allen Ginsberg, With Koyaanisqatsi, the extraordinary 1983 com­ William Burroughs, Ornette Coleman, Moondog, bination of music and fast-frame imagery that and the Fugs. From Shankar, Glass discovered critic Tim Page has aptly described as cinematic

Powaqqalsi continued on page 22

14 sa 1\/1

Brooklyn Academy of Music Bruce C. Ratner Chairman of the Board

Karen Brooks Hopkins Joseph V. Melillo President Executive Prod ucer

presents Shared Experience Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre Running time: BAM Harvey Lichtenstein Theater approximately 2 February 8-12, 2000, at 7:30pm hours and 45 February 13, 2000, at 3pm minutes, with one intermission Adapted and Directed by Polly Teale Design Neil Warmington Company Movement Liz Ranken Lighting Chris Davey Music Peter Salem Assistant Director Susan Nash

The Cast Bertha Harriette Ashcroft Mrs. Reed and Mrs. Fairfax Joan Blackham Jane Eyre Penny Layden Pilot the Dog, Lord Ingram, Brocklehurst, and SI. John Rivers Michael Matus Bessie, Blanche Ingram, Grace Poole, Diana Rivers , and Old Woman in the Ruins Hannah Miles Rochester Sean Murray Richard Mason and Cellist Philip Rham Abigail , Helen Burns, Adele , and Mary Rivers Octavia Walters

All other characters played by members of the company.

BAM Theater season is sponsored by Time Warner Inc. and Fleet Bank.

Leadership support is provided by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation and The Shubert Foundation, Inc.

-~o", · f.:.~,!~e]!.".!'r. The actors in Jane Eyre are appearing with the permission of Actors' Equity Association. 17 Eyrp

Production credits Production Manager Alison Ritchie Company Stage Manager Sid Charlton Deputy Stage Manager Jamie Byron Sound Operator Gary Giles Costume Supervisor Yvonne Milnes Wardrobe Mistress Helen Charlton Props Angela Simpson Tour LX Chris Clay Casting Marcia Gresham Set construction and painting Scenery Jessel Company voice work Patsy Rodenburg Dialect coach Jeannette Nelson Original script advisors Debbie Isitt, Nancy Meckler American Stage Manager Kim Beringer

Shared Experience Theatre would like to thank the following for their imaginative and enlightened support: Arts Council of England, The British Council ...... Westminster City Council, The British Council, The Esmee Fairbairn ...... Cha ritable Trust, The Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The Clothworkers' Foundation, The Mackintosh Foundation

The design and production of the current Jane Eyre costumes have been generously funded by a grant from The Clothworker's Foundation.

Thanks also to Method & Madness, Price's Candles, Royal National Theatre, Ryman the Stationers

Jane Eyre was first performed on September 4, 1997, at the Wolsey Theatre Ipswich, in association with the Wolsey and the Young Vic .

Shared Experience Joint Artistic Directors Nancy Meckler, Polly Teale Youth Th eatre Director Sue Nash Producer Rachel Tackley Marketing Manager Darrell Williams Administrator Jane Claire Finance Manager Bryan Lloyd Administrative Assistant Jo Salkilld Development Associate Susan Davenport

Board of Directors Kyra Bergin , Cllr Alan Bradley, Robert Cogo Fawcett (Chair), Kevin Fearon, Mike Hall, Adrian Lester, Abigail Morris, Ann Orton , Andrew Woods

Luwies, Darlings, Luwies and Darlings is a new friends scheme for individuals who want a and Absolute closer relationship with Shared Experience. The name might not be seri­ Sweethearts ous but your support is! By becoming a Luwie or Darling you will be giv­ ing the company valuable support-each year your gift will enable us to to achieve a particular artistic ambition. For information contact Shared Experience: fax (0171) 287 8763, or email: [email protected] 18 Program I\lotp,

On Adapting Jane Eyre Returning to Jane Eyre 15 years after I read it as a teenager, I found not by Polly Teale the gothic horror story I remembered, but a psychological drama of the most powerful kind. Everything and everyone in the novel is seen, larger than life, through the magnifying glass of Jane's psyche.

Why then, I asked myself, did Bronte invent a madwoman locked in an attic to torment her heroine? Why is Jane Eyre, a supremely rational young woman haunted by a raving vengeful she-devil? Why do these two women exist in the same story?

I had forgotten that the novel began with another image of incarceration. Another female locked away for breaking the rules of allowed behavior. Jane Eyre is shut up in the Red Room, when, for the first time in her young life, she allows her temper to erupt, losing control of herself in an attack of rage . Jane is told that "God will strike her dead in the midst of one of her tantrums." She is so terrified she loses consciousness. The message is clear. For a Victorian woman to express her passionate nature is to invite the severest of punishment. Jane must keep her fiery spirit locked away if she is to survive.

It seems to me that Jane and Bertha are not in fact opposites . Could it be that, like all the most frightening ghosts, the madwoman exists not in the real world but in Jane's imagination?

I have come to see the novel as a quest, a passionate inquiry. How is it possible for Jane as a woman to be true to herself in the world in which she finds herself? Each of the women in the novel suggests a possible role-from the excessive artificiality of Blanche Ingram to the silent stoicism of Helen Burns, we see the range of choices ava ilable. Jane, like Bronte, is "poor, obscure and plain," and yet hidden inside is a "'secret self": the huge imagination glimpsed in Jane's visionary paintings of foreign lands. The tiny books that the Brontes wrote compulsively as children were set in foreign lands based on the travelogues they read in their father's newspapers. Although Bronte spent most of her life in a remote Yorkshire village, she had a great longing to overpass the horizon of her restricted existence. It is significant that Bertha is a foreigner. She comes from the land of Bronte's imagination, from a land of hot rain and hurricanes. She is both dangerous and exciting. She is passionate and sexual. She is angry and violent. She is the embodiment of everything that Jane, as a Victorian woman, must never be. She is perhaps every­ thing that Bronte feared in herself and longed to express.

19 Program I\lotp,

Director 's note I am greatly indebted to ,Helen Edmundson for her inspirational adaptations of Anna Karenina , The Mill on the Floss, and War and Peace, which were the starting point and basis of this work. Also to Nancy Meckler, Liz Ranken, and all of the original company whose input was invaluable.

Shared Experience Shared Experience Theatre is committed to creating theater that goes beyond our everyday lives, giving form to the hidden world of emotion and imagination.

We see the rehearsal process as a genuinely open forum for asking questions and taking risks that redefine the possibilities of performance. At the heart of our work is the power and excitement of the performer's physical presence and the unique collaboration between actor and audience- a shared experience.

Shared Experience has been instrumental in pioneering an exciting and distinctive performance style that celebrates the union of physical and text-based theater. Consistently dedicated to innovation and exploration, the company enjoys outstanding artistic and critical success both at home and abroad.

The company tours extensively and its work ranges from adaptations of novels to contemporary and classic drama. All of Shared Experience's productions are created and developed at its London home, the Soho Laundry, a converted Grade II listed building. The Laundry provides a base for the company's continuous program of creative research, touring, and youth and education work.

Described by the British Council as a "flagship organization," Shared Experience is truly an international company, having performed in more than 20 countries. Nancy Meckler has been artistic director of Shared Experience for ten years. She was joined five years ago by Associate Director Polly Teale. Together they created the acclaimed The Mill on the Floss and War and Peace, both adapted by Helen Edmundson.

Youth , Education , Shared Experience's youth and education work is central to the company. Train ing, and Access All of its productions are accompanied by a comprehensive education program, in London and on tour. The company's Youth Theatre, based at the Laundry and supported by Westminster City Council, is a hotbed of creativity. Young performers come to stretch their physical and imaginative muscle in courses led by artists from within the company. It runs a wide variety of workshops and projects designed to put members in touch with the physical style of the main company's work.

20 Program I\lotp,

Bronte on Bronte "I am a very coarse, commonplace wretch. I have some qualities which make me very miserable, some feelings ... that very, very few people in the world can at all understand. I don't pride myself on these pecu­ liarities, I strive to conceal and suppress them as much as I can, but they burst out sometimes and then those who see the explosion despise me, and I hate myself for days afterwards." "Throughout my early youth ... 1felt myself incapable of feeling and acting as most people felt and acted ... unintentionally, I showed everything that passed in my heart and sometimes storms were passing through it. In vain I tried to imitate ... the serene and even temper of my companions .... " " ... 1could not restrain the ebb and flow of blood in my arteries and that ebb and fiow always showed itself in my face and in my hard unattractive features. I wept in secret." "The Human heart has hidden treasures In secret kept, in silence sealed." -Charlotte Bronte from Evening Solace, 1846 " ... must I from day to day sit chained to this chair, prisoned within these four bare walls, while these glorious summer suns are buming?" - from Bronte's Roe Head Joumal, c. August-October 1836 " ... Even now the fire Though smothered , slacked, repelled, is buming At my life's source." - from Bronte's Reason, c.1845 "Such a strong wish for wings Such an urgent thirst to see To know, to leam .... " -from Bronte's letter to Mary Taylor, 1842 \ALho', \ALho

Harriette Ashcroft trained at LAMDA. Her theater Joan Blackham appeared in Shared Experience's cred its include In the Summerhouse (Lyric original production of Jane Eyre. Other theater Hammersmith); Wiseguy Scapino, The Rose credits include Fay in Kenneth Williams' produc­ Tattoo; and A Taste of Honey (Theatr Clwyd, tion of Loot at the Lyric Hammersmith, Children of Mold); Tess of the D'Urbervilles (West Yorkshire a Lesser God at the Mermaid and the Albery, Playhouse); The Beaux Stratagem and Martha in The House of Ruby Moon at the Rhinoceros (Nuffield Southampton); Uttle Foxes Riverside Studios, Virginia Woolf in The Voyage (Leeds); A Small Family Business (Birmingham Home at the King's Head (Time Out Critics Rep); Romeo and Juliet (Caravan Farm Choice), Mr. Director at the Orange Tree , and Company, Canada); 1916 (Gulbenkian Theatre, Games at The Gate. Recent theater credits include Canterbury); The Guise (on tour in Hong Kong Lettice in Lettice and Lovage at Westcliff (Best and Romania); and The Rose Tattoo (Playhouse Actress Award), Clara Soppitt in When We Are Theatre , London). Her television credits include Married at West Yorkshire Playhouse, and Hettie Wainthrop Investigates, Blood Rights , and Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit at York Theater Inspector Allen (BBC TV); The Bill and Rumpole Royal. Her credits for the RSC include Robert of the Bailey (Thames TV) ; Wycliffe (HTV); and Holman's Across Oka and Making Noise Quietly, Kavanagh QC (Carlton). Ms. Ashcroft's film cred­ David Holman's ABC, Garry Hynes' productions of its include Once in a Ufetime. Man of Mode and Love of the Nightingale, and 20A \/\/ho', \/\/ho

Cis Berry's King Lear. Ms. Blackham has worked in London, Edinburgh, and San Francisco); on many television sitcoms, from Podge Hodge in Grace and Hitler's Childhood (Oxford Stage To the Manor Born to John Thaw's housekeeper Company at the Young Vic and on tour); The in Horne to Roost, and she recently played End of the Affair (Salisbury Piayhouse and the Jemma Redgrave's mother in the new series Cry Bridewell Theater); and a U.K. tour of The Wolf. Other recent credits include Inspector Provoked Wife , Horne Show Pieces, Sweet Bird Morse , The Broker's Man, Dangerfield, She's Out, of Youth, The Pitchfork Disney, and Marowitz The Grand, and the children's series Chocky's Hamlet (Citizens Theater Glasgow). His film Challenge. Her film credits include Plenty, Return and television credits include A Prince among to Waterloo, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, and Men, Then , The Bill, A Perfect World, Solitaire for Two. Eastenders, and A Muppet Christmas Carol.

Penny Layden trained at Rose Bruford College, Hannah Miles trained at the Guildhall School and recently appeared as Miranda in The of Music and Drama, and played Blanche Tempest and Juliet in Measure for Measure at Ingram and Bessie in Shared Experience's orig­ the RSC. Her other credits include Roberto inal production of Jane Eyre. Her theater cred­ Zucco (RSC); The Winter's Tale and Ghosts its include Eva in Shared Experience's produc­ (Method & Madness); Maid Marian and Her tion of The Danube and The Shift (Young Vic). Merry Men (Bristol Old Vic); The Art of Random Her television credits include the new series of Whistling (WINK Productions at the Young Vic); Randall and Hopkirk Deceased (with Vic What I Did in the Holidays (Cambridge Theater Reeves and Bob Mortimer), Between the Company at Drill Hall and on tour); Playing with Lines, Rules of Engagement, No Bananas , The Fire (King's Head); The Snow Queen (Library Bill, Guardians, Pie in the Sky, Peak Practice, Theater Manchester); Medieval Mystery Play and McCallum. (Polka Theater); Wakefield Mystery Cycle and An Everyday Apocalypse (Major Road Company); Sean Murray trained at the Guildford School of and The Jolly Potters, The Snow Queen, Music and Drama. His recent theater credits Henceforward, The Plough and the Stars, include John Proctor in The Crucible and Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dangerous Corner, Trofimov in The Cherry Orchard (Albery Les Uasons Dangereuses, Sweeney Todd, and A Theater, on tour, and for the Royal Shakespeare Midsummer Night's Dream (New Victoria Theater, Company at Stratford and the Barbican). His Stoke). Her television credits include Casualty and other RSC credits include The Phoenician The Bill. Her BBC radio credits include Return Women, The Virtuoso, Two Gentlemen of Ticket, The Wolfgang Chase, Second Chance, Verona , Romeo and Juliet, A Woman Killed Uganda, and The Witch of Edmonton . with Kindness, and Amphibians. His other theater credits include The Terrible Voice of Satan Michael Matus trained at the Royal Academy (Royal Court); The Fairy Queen (Aix-en­ of Dramatic Arts, and recently appeared in Provence Festival); For King and Country and Emma at the Palace Theater Watford and the Judy (Greenwich Theater); and Othello , The Edinburgh Festival. His previous work for Comedy of Errors , The Ufe of Galileo, The Shared Experience includes the role of Philip in Rivals, Tartuffe, Judy, Androcles and the Uon , The Mill on the Floss (Lyric Hammersmith and Uttle Hotel on the Side, and School for on tour). Mr. Matus' other theater credits Scandal (Bristol Old Vic). His television credits include Martin Guerre (Prince Edward Theater); include A Rather English Marriage, A Wing Eurovision (Vaudeville Theater); Wild Angel and a Prayer, The Bill, Peak Practice , Seaforth, (Royal Court New Writers Festival) ; The Smokescreen , Advocates, South of the Border, Betrayal of Nora Blake (Jermyn Street Theater); The Country Boy, and Eastenders. His film Richard III (Pleasance Theater); An credits include Calendar Girls and Guildenstern Immaculate Misconception (New End Theater in Zefferelli's Hamlet. 20B \ALho', \ALho

Philip Rham was in Shared Experience's origi­ Celebre and Then Again (Lyric Hammersmith), nal production of Jane Eyre and played Endgame and In a Uttle World of Our Own Kommandant Krieger in Devil's Arithmetic (pro­ (Oonmar Warehouse) , Blood Wedding and duced by Dustin Hoffman). In Germany he will Grimm Tales (Young Vic), Maa (Royal Court) , soon be seen as Jurgens, a U-Boat captain, in Love (West Yorkshire Playhouse) , and Just One the forthcoming Britannic. His other theater World (Aarchen, Germany). For the Royal credits include Richard Greatham in Hay Fever Shakespeare Company, he has lit A Midsummer (Leicester Haymarket); Lt. Cmdr. Rogers in Night's Dream , Troilus and Cressida, A Month French without Tears (Watford) ; Swiss Cheese in the Country, The Comedy of Errors , in Mother Courage and understudy for the role Everyman, and Easter. He has designed for of Nicky in The Vortex (Glasgow Citizens and companies, including Sadlers Wells, Liverpool West End); and Hastings in She Stoops to Everyman, Tricycle Theater, Theater Royal Conquer (Liverpool Everyman). His music theater Stratford East, Leicester Haymarket, and Method credits include Candide in Candide, Cavaradossi & Madness. His opera credits include La traviata in Tosca (Liverpool Everyman), Max in Lend Me (Castleward Opera, Northern Ireland), Gli equiv­ a Tenor (York), and Frederick in Pirates of oei, Schuman's Song Cycle, and A Man of Penzance (Perth). He has also performed sea­ Feeling (Batignano Opera , Italy); The Picture of sons with Cherub Company and Florence Dorian Grey (Opera de Monte-Carlo); and Faust Rep--a company he co-founded while living in (Surrey Opera). Italy. His television and radio credits include 102 Boulevard Haussmann (BBC) , Five Susan Nash is a freelance director and choreog­ Children and It (BBC), Brookside (Channel 4), rapher who worked with the dance theater com­ Black Bag (Channel 4), and After the Races pany Dance Unlimited from 1986- 94. Ms. (Radio 4). Nash trained at Middlesex University and is now a visiting lecturer for the college . Her recent work Octavia Walters trained at LAMDA, and played includes choreography for Ursula and Vanya Helen Burns and Adele in Shared Experience's (The Wrestling School) , The Man Who Mistook original production of Jane Eyre. Her other His Wife for a Hat and After Magritte (Bridewell credits include Adrian Noble's A Midsummer Theater), The Seven Deadly Sins (Art-Throb) , Night's Dream (RSC international tour), Sue The Ring Cycle (Royal Opera House), Brown in Rupert Goold's production of Summer TannhtJUser (Opera North), and Idomeneo , Die Ughtning (Sa li sbury Playhouse), and Kattrin in agyptische Helena, and Die Uebe der Danae Mother Courage (Wolsey Ipswich). Her other (Garsington Opera). Her recent directing work credits for the Wolsey include Lady Macbeth in includes an award-winning production of Macbeth, The Miser, and A Christmas Carol. Marquise de Sade (National Theater of She has recently finished The Cassilis Bulgaria) , Antigone (University of East Anglia) , Engagement (Orange Tree Theater, Richmond). Woyzeck and The Infernal Machine (Middlesex Film credits include the forthcoming Honest. University), The Scrivener (Finborough) , Leonce and Lena (Courtyard Theatre) , and Fragments Chris Davey 's lighting designs for Shared (Young Vic Youth Project). Experience include Jane Eyre and War and Peace (National Theater) and The Tempest , Mill Liz Ranken has been working with the company on the Floss , The Danube, and Desire under for six years. As movement director, she plays a the Elms . His recent designs include Baby Doll key role in rehearsals. She has worked on The (Birmingham Rep) , Three Sisters (Oxford Stage House of Bernarda Alba, Jane Eyre, The Company at the Whitehall Theater) , The Deep Tempest, War and Peace , The Mill on the Floss, Blue Sea (Lyceum Edinburgh), Family and and Anna Karenina . In 1992 she won the Passing Places (Traverse Edinburgh), Shining Dance Umbrella(Time Out Award for "bringing Souls (Peter Hall season at the Old Vic), Cause theater alive with movement." Her own work 20C \ALho', \ALho includes Summat A-do-wi Weddins (Place Polly Teale is the joint artistic director of Portfolio Choreographic Award 1989), Theory of Shared Experience Theatre and has been work­ Love, Ooh (working with performers with and ing with the company for the last five years. without disabilities), Funk Off Green (Capital Her work for the company includes The House Award 1992), and Terminatress (devised with of Bernarda Alba, Desire under the Elms , War Rae Smith, at London's ICA). As a performer, and Peace, and The Mill on the Floss , the lat­ Ms. Ranken has worked with DV8 Physical ter two co-directed with Nancy Meckler. Her Theatre, Gloria, CAT A Company (performing in other theater credits include Angels and Saints prisons and theaters), The Big Tease and Snatch (Soho Theatre), The Glass (Grassmarket Project), and ENO. As a move­ Menagerie (Lyceum Edinburgh), Miss Julie ment director for the RSC, her credits include A (Young Vic), Babies and Uganda (Royal Court), Midsummer Night's Dream, Troilus and A Taste of Honey (English Touring Theatre), Cressida, The Changeling , Richard III , The Somewhere (Roya l National Theatre), Waiting Phoenician Women, and As You Uke It. She at the Water's Edge (Bush Theatre), What Is worked on Hunting Scenes of Lower Bavaria Seized (Drill Hall), Ladies in the Uft (Soho and My Mother Said I Never Should with direc­ Poly) , and Flying, Manpower, and Other Voices tor Dominic Cooke, and was recently movement (Royal National Theatre Studio). Ms. Teale's director for Dreaming at the Royal Exchange writing credits include Afters (BBC Screen on Manchester and Arabian Nights at the Young Two) and Fallen (Traverse Edinburgh). Jane Vic. Television and film credits include working Eyre is published by Nick Hem Books. as a performer for Wendy Houston (BBC2), Edward /I and Pet Shop Boys tour for Derek Neil Warm ington gained a first-class bachelor Jarman, Alive and Kicking for Nancy Meckler, of arts honors degree in fine art before com­ and 3 Steps to Heaven for Connie Criannaris. pleting a post-graduate theater design course at Motley. His design credits for Shared Peter Salem's sound scores have become a major Experience include Desire under the Elms and ingredient in the company's work. He has com­ Jane Eyre. Mr. Warmington's other recent posed music scores for the company's productions credits include Crazy Horse and Riddance of The House of Bernarda Alba, Jane Eyre, The (Paines Plough) , Don Juan and The Taming of Tempest, War and Peace, Sweet Sessions, The the Shrew (English Touring Theatre), Family Mill on the Floss, and Anna Karenina. For the and Passing Places (Traverse), Dissent and Royal National Theatre and the RSC , his credits Angels in America (7 :84), The Glass include Rose, The Crucible, The Miser, Robert Menagerie and Comedians (Royal Lyceum , Lepage's A Midsummer Night's Dream , Julius Edinburgh) , Life is a Dream and Fiddler on Caesar, and Murder in the Cathedral. His other the Roof (West Yorkshire Playhouse), The credits include The Tempest at Salisbury Duchess of Malfi (Bath Theatre Royal), Henry Playhouse, a U.K. tour of The Provok'd Wife , The V (Royal Shakespeare Company), Much Ado Nose at Nottingham Playhouse, The Cabinet of Dr. About Nothing (Queen's Theatre, London), Caligari at the Lyric Hammersmith and on tour, Ufe of Stuff (Donmar Warehouse), The Ashes and Sand at the Royal Court, The 4 Marys Tempest (Contact), Women Laughing for Second Stride, and Vistas Divisivas for Zaragosa (Watford), Waiting For Godot (Liverpool Ballet. Mr. Salem's music for radio drama includes Everyman), Troilus and Cressida (Opera the Brother Cadfael series, and his television cred­ North), and Oedipus Rex (Connecticut State its include Great Expectations , Painted Lady (star­ Opera). Mr. Warmington recently designed ring Helen Mirren), Remember the Family, 3 Glasgow's 1999 Year of Architecture Launch, Salons at the Seaside, Anchors, and 8 Hours from and his awards include three TMA Awards for Paris (BBC Screen Two). Film work includes scores set and costume design, the Linbury Prize for for The Spy Who Caught Cold, Jim Broadbent's stage design, and the Sir Alfred Munnings Big Day, and Nancy Meckler's Alive and Kicking. Florence Prize for painting. 20D continued from page 14

Anima Mundi

Kundun Photo by Photo/est ballet, Glass made his mark in film through a do. Having completed his second portrait opera, similarly radical collaboration. Music, no longer Satyagraha (his first opera in which music was background, moved in parallel motion to Reggio's set to a text), and at work on his third, extraordinary visions of city and landscape. But Akhnaten, Glass approached Mishima as por­ even for the narrative film Mishima, two years trait opera as well. He composed to the later, Glass found himself still more opera than screenplay not the movieola. movie composer. Although his score functions as traditional background film music, it operates far Added together, Koyaanisqatsi and Mishima closer to the foreground than most movie scores produced the formula for performative cinema . 22 Mishima Photo by Photofest

And if music and image were equal in Koy­ wrote music for the characters in the actua l aanisqatsi, they became even more equa l when movie, La Belle et fa Bete, to sing-the film is Glass first attempted to have his ensemble per­ projected but without its original soundtrack; form live with the film , as well as with its instead, live opera singers onstage perform sequels, Powaqqatsi and Anima Mundi (as he Glass' new score while attempting to lip synch will do at BAM). The next step was to put the with the screen. This is no longer cinema. We music in the foreground altogether by treating in the audience are not isolated in a darkened Cocteau's Orphee screenplay as the libretto for movie house but partaking of a collective the­ staged opera. Then daring still more, Glass ater experience. The film resides in the 23 background-significant background to be sure, music is not quite the foreground that it is in La but music is in control. Belle et la Bete, but the film is nevertheless radically changed and now alive. An appreciation of La Belle et la Bete helps when approaching Dracula as performative cin­ This has, frankl y, disconcerted some moviegoers ema. Browning's early 1931 talkie does not who expect Bela Lugosi to always loom with the use music for dramatic effect. Warbly Swan same spooky presence, who want their movies to Lake underscores the titles, but mainly the film be, unlike life, reassuringly repeatable experi­ lets stony silence and sound effects-the cries ences. But Glass won't have it; for him the of wolves and the creaking of coffin lids-create screen is trick mirror. In removing the illusion of the theatrical atmosphere of the stage play reality by putting the reality of live performers on upon which the film is based. Glass' music for stage with the movie screen, Glass has, as he string quartet provides a new mood, a new has with opera, not so much helped redefine the tone. But in live performance (for which the medium as helped undefine it altogether. composer has added a keyboard part for him­ self) something more happens. The music is Mark Swed is chief music critic for The Los seen as well as heard-the players can be Angeles Times. glimpsed behind the screen. Here, with the original effects track and dialogue retained, the "Philip on Film" runs March 21-26.

La Belle et la Bete Photo by Photofest critic in Germany, dismissively brushed Weill away as a "pretentious" fool who had "talked himself into" believing that a composer could be creative within the bounds of the commercial the­ ater. As if in answer, the headline on the New York Times obituary saluted Weill as a creator of Broadway "hits," adding casually in a subhead, "Also Composed Operas."

But destiny, as one of Weill's American collabora­ tors remarked in a song lyric, plays funny tricks. A century after Weill 's birth (March 2, 1900), and a half century after the half-dismissive obse­ quies that followed his death, Weill's music is more alive than ever. Widely performed and extensively recorded, he's universally acknowl­ edged as a major influence on this century's music- where theater music's concerned, per­ haps the single most important influence. In a musical world increasingly built on "crossovers" from one mode to another, Weill is one of the rare artists to have crossed over in both directions: Works he created for classical-music venues have locked themselves into popular cu lture, while his "commercial" Broadway musicals have increas­ BAM celebrates this year's ingly found their way into opera houses. Kurt Weill may have brushed off posterity, but poster­ centennial of the birth of Kurt ity emphatically hasn't returned the favor.

Weill with performances of The He was born Curt-notice the variant spelling­ Eternal Road and Weill Style: A Julian Weill in the medium-sized city of Dessau, Germany. His father, Albert Weill, was a syna­ Kurt Weill Centenary Gala gogue cantor, the musically cultivated descendant Celebration. The composer's work of a line of Jewish scholars and rabbis six cen­ turies long, accepted on equal terms with other changed the face and soul of German citizens for nearly a century. The family's degree of assimilation may be gauged from the musical theater forever. By fact that the child's first piano teacher was the Michael Feingold. organist of his father's synagogue.

Nurtured by his close and supportive family-he "To hell with posterity," the composer Kurt Weill was the third of four children-Weill learned once said, "I write for today." When he died in quickly. By 1918, when he moved to Berlin to New York, on April 5, 1950, having lived a study composition with Engelbert mere fifty years, posterity was poised to agree Humperdinck--composer of the evergreen with him. The appraiser who evaluated his Hansel and Gretel- the shy, big-eyed 18-year­ musical estate said that of all his works, only a old already had considerable experience as a few popular songs and the short folk-song opera composer and pianist. Even more important, the Down in the Valley had any lasting value. young Weill was a voracious reader, whose Theodor Adorno, then the most influential music extensive knowledge of German literature had

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Photos courtesy of the Weill-Lenya Research Center led him to form a strong, self-assured-and Weill's music captu red the tone of th is fevered often surprising- sense of the qualities he val­ time precisely. He had moved on from ued in a poet. Humperdinck to study with the modernist com ­ poser Ferruccio Busoni, whose own That sense, which never left Weill, had coa­ forward-looking approach was coupled with a lesced in the crucible of World War I's protracted deep passion for the contrapuntal exactitude of torment. The humiliating peace that followed it, Bach, of whose keyboard works he was the era's bringing Germany near-starvation and social leading interpreter. He nurtured both Weill's har­ upheaval, was exacerbated by the inflationary monic daring and the classical purity of his economic policy that briefly made even wheel­ sense of musical structure. At the same time, barrows full of banknotes worthless. The Europe's popular music was undergoing a revo­ German youth of the 1920s, classmates and lution, with the new rhythms of ragtime and jazz siblings of the war's dead or maimed, had seen flooding in from the U.S ., the tango from Latin the country's 19th-century pretensions of imper­ America . Blowing away the aging routines of ial grandeur crumble along with its Victorian parlor music and operetta, they merged in Weill's morals. The clear-eyed cynicism they cherished vision, as in those of contemporaries such as in art was dubbed Die Neue Sachlichkeit-the Stravinsky and Milhaud, with the new chromatic new acceptance of fact; the anger and despera­ freedom of the modern movement and the clarity tion churning underneath it found a voice in of pre-Romantic composition. Weill's bete noire fact's antithesis, Expressionism . In the "factual­ was the ultra-romanticist Richard Strauss; his ity" of Berlin's 1920s cabarets, life was a scam own early operas, to texts by the Expressionist and everybody a crook; in a multitude of Expres­ playwright Georg Kaiser and the Surrealist poet sionist plays, half-coherent young heroes killed Yvan GolI, were grotesque, thornily polytonal their fathers for creating such a corrupt world. tragicomed ies. In one, to Kaiser's sardonic 36 farce, The Czar Has His Photograph Taken style can seem at home in any venue, from opera (1928), the violent climax is forestalled when the house to late-night cabaret; it can illuminate, hero puts on a phonograph record of a tango. heighten, comment on, or satirically deflate virtu­ ally any dramatic situation. Always humane in its By the time The Czar was premiered, though , outlook, it can give voice to the basest individual Weill had already begun work with the greater motives or the deepest griefs of an entire society. poet-playwright whose name would be perma­ The major works Weill created with Brecht nently linked with his: Bertolt Brecht. A fiercely between 1927 and 1933- The Threepenny ambitious, chronically rebellious bad boy from a Opera , Happy End, Der Jasager, The Seven middle-class Munich family, Brecht was a one­ Deadly Sins, and the two versions of man literary empire, pouring out plays, poems, Mahagonny- are each in a different form ; within essays, and theoretical works with the help of a their unmistakable style, they reveal an almost multitude of "collaborators," including the parade staggering variety of sounds. The range expands of high l'y intelligent young women who , having still further as Weill begins to look beyond Brecht, succumbed to his gruff seductiveness, willingly turning to designer Caspar Neher as a librettist for provided rough drafts for his agile mind to trans­ Die Burgschaft, and returning to his old partner figure. Brecht's behavioral sins were Kaiser for Der Silbersee. innumerable , his poetic instinct near-infallible. It was through collaboration with him that Kurt Weill's reasons for seeking other collaborators Weill became one of the composers to define the were not entirely personal. The blaze of glory in century's tone and rhythm. which The Threepenny Opera had made hirn world-famous also signaled the start of the With Brecht, Weill perfected his musical method , Weimar Republic's decline into the hell of merging a classical gravity and lucidity of form Nazism . The world of Brecht and Weill , that with a popular, idiomatic sound to create a iconic scene which hangs over so much of medium of astonishing strength and flexibility. His today's sensibility, was ending even as it began.

Lotte Lenya and Kurt Weill Photos courtesy of the Weill-Lenya Research Center continued on page 62 Upcoming 8U::lnt<~

The Eternal Road (Oer Weg der Verheissung) Music by Kurt Weill A biblical drama in four parts BAM Howard Gilman Opera House Feb 28 and 29, Mar 1, 3, and 4 at 7:30pm Mar 5 at 3pm BAMfamily Vernon Reid Bring Your Beats BAM Harvey Theater Mar 25 at 2pm; Mar 26 at 3pm Philip on Film Original Music by Philip Glass Performed by Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble, with screenings of Anima Mundi, Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Dracula BAM Howard Gilman Opera House Mar 21-25 at 7:30pm

Mar 26 at 3pm The Eternal Road by Dieter Wuschanski (top); Vernon Reid by Carolina Selguero (bottom left); Philip Glass by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (bottom right) BA I\/Ici npmab:~k

BAMcinematek at BAM Beyond The Eternal BAMcinematek favorites Rose Cinemas features Road: New Voices 3/16-3/19 daily screenings of From Israel The Saragossa classic American and 11 films examining the Manuscript foreign films, documen- Jewish and Isreali 3/25 & 3/26 taries, retrospectives , experience during the My Best Fiend and specia l festivals. 20th century 3/27 Conspirators 3/9 Avodah; Menelik; of Pleasure Cinemachat with Seder Trek ; The 3/28 Gloria Elliott Stein Children of the Jews Join the renowned 3/10 Martin; The King Schedule is subject to critic for a post- and the Jester; Uman; change. For showtimes screening discussion Karussel call 718.636.4157. 3/8 Salt of the Earth 3/11 Fragments* Jerusalem Dinner & Movie $25 Black Cinema Cafe 3/12 The Story of the Dine at BAMcafe and A monthly series Etemal Road; see a movie at BAM showcasing independent Fragments *Jerusalem Rose Cinemas for just Black film 3/13 Beyond the Walls $25! Tickets available at 3/15 Personals 3/14 A Visitor from the cinema box office. the Living 55 continued from page 37

Driven out of Germany, Weill restarted his career whose structures, built for function and solidity, in Paris-where his collaborators included the constitute a repertory of models." Weill, in other playwright Jacques Deval , the poet Robert words, was the man who taught the 20th cen­ Desnos, and Jean Cocteau-before definitively tury how to build works of music theater, from putting down roots in New York. the simplest items for home and school use to massive events on an epic scale. In the 25 People often assert that Weill became a "differ­ years of his creative adulthood, he turned out ent" composer in America, that his is the so many masterpieces of excitement and power broken-backed story of a man with two separate that it has taken another 50 for us to see them careers. What the reconsiderations of the past fully as they are. Now, a century after his birth two decades have made clear is that Weill did and a half-century after his death, the work has not change his approach; he simply adapted it to been gathered, published, restored. It's time to a different set of conventions. The opera house celebrate. From Stuttgart to San Francisco, from and symphony concert were not organic to Amer­ London to Yokohama, there will be Weill in con­ ica's life as they had been to Europe's; the cert halls, theaters, opera houses, and musical show and the song recital were. Where cabarets; books, CDs, and newly edited scores his music had once found the warmth within have started to appear; and a traveli ng multi­ Brecht's harshness, it now made Maxwell Ander­ media exhibit will open in Berlin, making its son's stony solemnity burst into bloom; in lieu of way to New York in time for Weill's 101st Germany's cabaret wits, he found stimulus for anniversary. Clearly, the celebration will last­ his comic side in light-verse masters like Ira pardon the pun-some while. One wonders Gershwin, Ogden Nash, and Alan Jay Lemer. what the man who said, "I write for today" And like the European stage works, each of would think, to find his work brightening so Weill's American musicals constructs a different many tomorrows. form. Far from losing his power and integrity in the commercial theater, he was building them to Chief theater critic at the Village Voice, Michael a peak of expression when a heart attack cut Feingold is also noted for his translations of short his life. Weill's Threepenny Opera, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, and Happy End. In his obituary for Weill, critic-composer Virgil Thomson said what is probably the truest thing Weill Style: A Kurt Weill Centenary Gala Cele­ about his importance as an artist: "He was an bration will be presented on February 10. Weill's architect, a master of musico-dramatic design, The Eternal Road runs Febuary 28 to March 5.

Photo courtesy of the Weill-Lenya Research Center