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L.08.5: Act Like You Mean it
Al Saunders
Art Critic, U.S. Daily News
As you know I have been on vacation for the past week, but I hope that has not deterred any of my readers from critiqueing some art on their own. What does an art critic do on vacation? Well this one sampled Terry Maiers’ new play, “Act Like You Mean It”. Maiers is known more for his short comedy sketches, so this is his first attempt at a full length pass4sure “serious” play. I use the paranthesis because there is a lot of humor in this play but overall I would have to say there is no way to call this a comedy.
The play begins showing a rehearsal of a play where the main character Ralph Brooks cannot remember his lines. Obviously it is late in the rehearsal process and the cast is frustrated with Ralph. Maiers is pass4sure exams clever with his lines in this pat of the act and draws humor from the situation. However Ralph continues with his line phobia after the rehearsal is over, contending he can’t remember what he is supposed to say when having conversations outside the theater. We see him with his wife and a few friends. Agaiin there is humor there, although it felt like author was obviously stretching this act out some. Finally we are given a surprise ending to explain George’s lack of memory at the end of Act 1.
But when the Seond Act begins and George continues having trouble remembering what to say and appears more nervous things begin to take a more serious tone in the play. The intent seems to be for the audience to have sympathy for Ralph, and even though there are still some humorous lines, it is more nervous laughter from the audience than belly laughs. By the end of the act Ralph seems to be having some serious problems and again we are given the surprise reason for these at the end of the act.
In the Third Act Ralph is now seriously questioning things up to the point as to just what is real and what isn’t. His questioning leads up to him seeing a psychiatrist. What seemed funny at the beginning of the play now seems very serious and the audience questions Ralph’s sanity. Maiers sticks to his old tricks and after a few meetings with both George and his wife, the pyschiatrist comes up with a surprise solution at the end of the play. However the audience is left wondering if this is really a solution for Ralph or if Ralph was perhaps the only sane one in the play.
Obviously Maiers has a fondess for gimmicks such as the play within the play and the surprise endings. These work to a certain degree but after a while one is wondering more what he will spring on the audience rather than focusing on the play itself. Also the change in Ralph is so drastic, going from a humorous character to one that questions reality itself, I was left at times wondering just what the author intended. But this is the type of play that needs to be thought about some after seeing it, for looking back at Ralph’s struggle I realize it was meant to model all our struggles with who we are, only on a grander scale.
Although flawed, this is a play worth seeing for its humor and more for the questions raised and left unaswered at the end.
Protected: Rant
Recommendation
Hi all. I am looking for a fun, easy to read pass4sure 000-853 translation of Don Quixote. Anyone have a recommendation? pass4sure 000-M15
Artpile
I know we all come across sites with art that interests/intrigues/delights us. Like the Spam Koans before it, I dedicate this post to our collection.
L.08.5: McGil
HEROES magazine
Nov., 2007
‘McGil,’ 240 pages, Dark Horse
A REVIEW by Ric Moore
The ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ as a Western? In graphic novel format? How could such a great idea go so wrong? It’s not difficult to understand when you see the writing credit. W. Jeff Bishop hasn’t done much right in the comic book world since his genre-pushing glory days of ‘End of Ism.’ That early-90s heyday of top-rack status and massive pre-orders is far behind him, now, however and, by the looks of this latest jaunt, Bishop is getting no closer to finding his lost muse.
The graphic novel’s story begins in the desert, which is an appropriate metaphor for the work as a whole. McGil, an Irish gunslinger, searches for his lost kinsman, Inkidiyu, who is a Cherokee shaman in this version of the overworked Biblical-era tale. Latent homo-eroticism abounds, but that is not the problem (actually it is the one aspect of this jumbled tale that actually works). Right from the start, Bishop sandbags what should be a simple tale of love and loss with unnecessary and inflated “hero’s journey” underpinnings that render what should be a sublime tale of self-discovery into a stilted, pretentious mess. (Bishop, please take note: Joseph Campbell died in 1987. Let his Jungian-crazed psychobabble die with him.)
The story, such as it is, involves McGil reluctantly coming to the aid of some vaguely ethnic villagers, who are being terrorized by a “tree troll” who calls himself “Humbaba.” The names are different, but this is the same plot we’ve seen re-hashed again and again in everything from “Seven Samurai” to “A Bug’s Life.” I don’t even have to go into the particulars because you KNOW where this is going.
There are moments where the work dances around profundity — for instance when McGil visits the sprite with the lost Incan treasure on the edge of the desert — but Bishop can’t seem to be honest with himself when it comes to issues of mortality. It’s almost as if he can look into the abyss, creep up to its edge, but then think of nothing better to do than to spit. For $39.95, I expect more. From the writer of “End of Ism,” an incontrovertible turning point in the medium, we have every right to demand it.
But Bishop, like his protagonist, remains lost in his own creative desert. Like McGil, he’s shooting blanks in the darkness. And even the magnificent art of Bob Goodall, who has never been better than he is here, cannot make up for what is so sorely lacking in this, mankind’s oldest story.
As a former fan, I hope Bishop finds that lost muse again. But he hasn’t done so in this particular work. And with each passing attempt, I’m less optimistic that he ever will.
Wherever your bliss may be, you certainly won’t find it here.
Two stars (out of six)
RM
L.08.5: Critical Review Assignment
Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide
pp 665-667
Article: “The Road to the Netherworld”
Considered by a largely cult following to be one of the most undersung films of all time, Mike Funt’s The Road to the Netherworld definitely deserves honorable mention in pass4sure EC0-232 the category of dark comedy. The film is a comic retelling of The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, under the guise of a Hope and Crosby “Road” picture of the 1940’s.
The film begins with Benny Stern and Flash Hollins having just shed their mortality, pass4sure 000-998 when the ship on which they are song and dance entertainers crashes into a rocky shoal during a storm. The two are find themselves wisecracking their way through the afterlife as they face trial upon tribulation on their journey to the hereafter. One comic highlight involves the pair huckstering their way past the god Re during a tap-dancing number with lyrics like “Off we’re gonna shuffle, shuffle off our mortal coil.” This is a parallel to the song given to sing to appease Re in the ancient text.
The fast-paced, one-liner dialogue is a forte of Funt’s, and if there is nothing else to be said for this film, it is funny. However, if your looking for strong characters or a plot not chock full of holes and inconsistencies, this might not be the film for you. Although, if you are a fan of the Hope and Crosby films, you pass4sure MB2-867 know those things aren’t the strong suit pass4sure 1Z1-520 of this genre.
Overall, very fun, and slightly educational.
B+
L.08.5: “Odd Man” In!
ModBerMan Trio: Odd Man
CD review
The Atlantic Monthly
Charles Serittella, critic
The great philosopher Georg Christoph Lichtenberg once opined, “When we read odes our nostrils expand and so do our toes.†I never knew what he meant until recently, when I heard Lyles’ “Trio for Piano, Trombone, and Soprano Saxophone†performed by the ModBerMan Trio and originally recorded at the New York Public Library’s “Odd Man Out Series.†Not only my nostrils and toes, but as the work itself dilated to fill the universe of its three movements, my brain and soul expanded as well.
I was well aware of Lyles’ symphonic output, disturbingly familiar as it has become in recent seasons, but this is the first of his chamber works I have come across. No doubt my lack of awareness can be attributed to the lack of recordings of this part of his oeuvre, a lack I call upon our recording industry to rectify: more, more more!
Working in what he has chosen to call his “post-minimalist†style pass4sure 140-420 (a label that has unfortunate associations, particularly as it is misapplied to his work), Lyles has crafted a stunning if difficult canvas for three widely disparate instruments. Indeed, without the skill of Maila and David Springfield and their colleague Joren Cain, it would be easy to imagine this work falling to pieces.
However, it did not fall to pieces: it cohered, it jumped, it soared to its ethereal conclusion. But I get ahead of myself.
The opening movement, labeled “Andante,†is a lovely nocturne, pass4sure ST0-075 beginning with Lyles’ trademark arpeggiations in the lower piano. Soon joined by the saxophone and, improbably, by the trombone, the figures change colors like watercolored fireflies until the wind instruments are released into a rhapsodic theme that hovers about the piano’s continued swirling. The whole thing eventually dies away the same way it came, and we are left thinking that this movement alone should have been enough.
That feeling is an illusion, disproved by the impish scherzo that follows. The winds play hide and seek with a quirky little theme that dives in and out of the irregular rhythms of the piano’s chordal accompaniment. I was reminded of the peasant dance of the scherzo of Beethoven’s 6th, where the peasant band can’t quite keep the beat and neither can you. Without having seen the score, I presume Lyles resorted to multiple time signatures to achieve the same feeling, but I could easily be wrong.
A wild, horrid, downward rush in the piano announces the opening of the final movement, labeled “Allegro agitato,†and it is clear the music has a dark message to impart. All three instruments pound and repound the descending theme without regard to meter or key until surely, one thinks, neither the composer nor the musicians—nor the listener—can stand any more, and then suddenly, gratefully, the whole piece bottoms out with what sounds as if it might be the longest note ever held by a trombone. (My brain rattled with the dreadful anticipation that it might be yet again assaulted by the main theme.)
But the piano begins to rebuild its arpeggiations from the first movement, and the winds play an inverted form of the downward theme that allows us to rise from the ashes of the opening conflagration, lifting higher and higher until they are playing softly repeating notes, calling one to the other as the piano floats toward them, above them, and away.
It left me quite breathless, and if you admire Lyles’ symphonic output, you will be quite astonished as well. He has crafted, from three unlikely instruments, a completely winning work.
The other two works on the disc, while as effectively played by the ModBerMan Trio, do not offer as…
Assignment L.08.5: Critical Receptions
For some reason the Caleb Larsen web site brought this one to mind. Here’s the assignment: imagine you have done some piece of creative work (which, of course, you haven’t…have you) and write a review or piece of criticism of that work from the point of view of some reviewer or commentator, fictional or actual (you choose–let your lawyer guide you), writing for some fictional or actual publication. The critic’s response can be favorable or not. It must be a made-up work (Dale can’t imagine a critical response to the Symphony, for instance, since that actually exists–or is actually coming into existence, or so he says). I think such reviews and responses should begin to litter our blog flow from time to time over the next few months. And in our comments to the posts, let’s treat the work as real and respond accordingly by perhaps agreeing or disagreeing with what has been written, adding our own details to “the work in question” as we see fit. Dress it up however you wish. Scholarly or popular critical modes. Photos? Quotes? Citations? Comparisons to both real and other equally fictitious works? “Some piece of creative work” is meant to be broad and all-encompassing. You can just as easily see yourself as some Larsen-like creature as you can imagine yourself to be America’s next important writer.