The line between witness and voyeur in a theater audience can be razor-thin. Sometimes it’s nonexistent. From a conveniently darkened area we look, apparently unobserved, into a room where unstable lives are simulated. The façade of a “fourth wall” is usually erected to enhance this effect. And though our seats are generally situated literally above […]
Byron Woods
Bio: Byron Woods is the INDY's theater and dance critic.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/byronwoods
Posted inNews
When purgatory shifts
One thing’s certain: Ariel Dorfman got full value from actors Priscilla Lopez and Tom Hewitt during last weekend’s three-day run of Purgatorio. After all, staged readings like this, complete with blocking, lights and set, are difficult enough without the playwright literally rewriting the ground beneath you: cutting or adding pages of lines without warning each […]
Posted inNews
The (really) final exam
Playwright Ariel Dorfman is certain of it: Purgatorio, his new work premiering this weekend at Duke, is the intellectual and emotional sequel to Death and the Maiden, the 1992 Broadway psychological drama that remains his best-known work. But consider the title for a moment. Since it’s a subtle thing, there’s no telling in advance how […]
Posted inArt
When choreographers trip
When Choreographers Trip Choreo Shorts and Rene Aumiller contemplate dance synesthesia, as N.C. Dance Festival disembarks by byron woods O n first hearing, the news may cheer the moralists while dismaying the 50-somethings who were 20-somethings in the ’60s: Some of the kids these days aren’t using chemicals to cross-wire the senses and blow the […]
Posted inNews
As seen on TV?
Watching Paul Sorvino as Tevye was exactly like watching him on television. That, in a nutshell, was the main problem with the N.C. Theatre’s production of Fiddler on the Roof last Sunday afternoon: The TV in question had a 19-inch diagonal screen and good reception. It also stood more than 80 feet away from our […]
Posted inNews
In moving images (and bodies)
What happens when experimental filmmakers, photographers, choreographers and musicians stay up wayyy past bedtime to play together in an after-hours movie house? Find out Saturday night–at midnight–when Choreo Collective hosts Choreo Shorts at Chapel Hill’s Carolina Theatre. The late-night multi-media melange features short films and documentaries by Tiffany Rhynard, Erik Martin and alban elved dance […]
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A&E Spotlight
Folks, here’s what we hope they always mean when they say “Program subject to change without notice.” Instead of the touring version of tap wunderkind Savion Glover’s decade-old breakthrough hit, Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk, next Tuesday night the Page Auditorium audience is going to see Glover’s brand new (and critically acclaimed) […]
Posted inNews
First fruits–and troubled couples
Whenever characters are this robust and the direction this finely detailed, rest assured, we do take names. So should you. So jot ’em down, because even if you missed David Shouse’s directing debut in a too brief, four-night run of Jack and Jill last week at N.C. State, believe me, you’re going to want to […]
Posted inNews
Building common ground
What better way to start a new year in the arts than with glad tidings of a new theater company–and a new performance venue–both opening this week? Nicole Quenelle and Lauren Walker’s new company, Self-Induced Theater Project, presents Cindy Lou Johnson’s dark comedy Brilliant Traces this weekend as the inaugural production at the Common Ground […]
Posted inNews
Dance
As it happens, Van Morrison was right: Sometimes you do have to hard nose the highway. Sometimes it ain’t nothing but a bootstrap ballet. Regional dance took its fair share of knocks this year as at least one critic noticed trouble at home in standards and practices–including dance criticism–and raised the alarm. The community has […]