The Hub Review: The ghost at the window

Monday, October 26, 2009

The ghost at the window

The Anne Frank Museum has released the only known footage of the famous author, above, briefly gazing down from a window at a wedding procession. Somehow all the more poignant for being so simple and ordinary.

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You know I get free tickets, right?

Some bloggers have been huffing and puffing over a new FTC regulation that requires disclosure of freebies. The rule doesn't bother me much in principle (as many bloggers are, indeed, fundamentally dishonest) and I guess technically it extends to press tickets - so can I just use this space as a blanket declaration of the fact that, in case you didn't know, I get free tickets to much of what I review.

Ah - but not all. Thanks to the schemes of Kati Mitchell at the ironically-titled ART, and Company One's Shawn LaCount, a protest has been mounted against my rather provocative honesty regarding the moral and aesthetic lapses of people like Diane Paulus. So I'll be paying for more shows. I'll try not to let that make a difference in my review . . . but it could be hard . . . .

More evidence for the death of theatre (if you wanted any)

Only not as fast as everything else!

The LA Times highlights an interesting fact about the recent NEA arts survey that no one else has mentioned. Yes, attendance at the performing arts has declined somewhat - it's shrunk 4.4% since 1982. What's surprising is that attendance at everything else has fallen off even faster. Movie attendance dropped at twice that rate; sporting events at four times that rate. Surprised? I'm not, not really. Technology is killing off all live interaction, it seems, but as the arts offer something you really can't get via instant replay or Tivo, they're more resistant to its corrosive effects. Not that we shouldn't be worried about civilization in general. We just shouldn't feel that the arts are the biggest losers in this ongoing war.

Attack of the Audience Member from Hell!

Ah, the cell phone! Did the performing arts ever encounter a more baleful enemy? We've all had our encounters with crass texters, or those who've "forgotten" to turn off their cells or pagers, but I've never come across someone who actually made a call during a performance until this weekend. At Dawn Upshaw's recent concert (which was wonderful, btw), some old bag in a designer suit took out her cell just as Dawn was launching into her final encore, and yes, made a call. To her limo driver, no less, telling him she wanted to be picked up NOW. Let's just say I'd never encountered till yesterday a Schubert lieder that included the lyrics, "JORDAN HALL, Louie. Yes. She's almost finished, I wanna leave now!" Cell phones are a pet peeve of my partner's, and when the audience began applauding, he turned around and let the old bag have it. "You should be banned from concert halls for the rest of your life!" he screamed, while I mentally added, "Which we hope is short!" But the rich old bitch began shouting back, believe it or not. You just can't reach some people. We saw her limo on the way out. If there had been some rocks handy, we would have stoned it.