This is a stunning political thriller and a true story. “Let‘s make a bonfire of the truth” starts out as a song. Smoke and flames. The character William MacRae (Andy Paterson) is about 40, a Glasgow lawyer, square faced, serious. It‘s 1985, and he is being watched by spies. He will take us back to 1974. Paterson is stunning as the character he has written. And the story is as powerful as anything (not) written in the media.
When I go to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as I have for the past five years, I know I want to see Mark Thomas at the Traverse. That theater is Edinburgh’s most politically important year ˜round stage, and Thomas is always the most prescient writer/perfor
Le Temps, Geneva, Aug 23, 2018 – (English translation follows French.) Le rapport de l‘ancien parlementaire socialiste sur l‘affaire Magnitsky a été jugé partial et inutilisable par le juge new-yorkais William H. Pauley III. Une passe d‘armes qui illustre le gouffre entre systemes judiciaires américain et européen. (English translation follows.)
How does a sports champion deal with political morality? What does she care about? Personal achievement? A sense of justice? How does she ignore that her sponsors are killing her people?
“Quand le Piano Fait son Cinéma” is a charming, clever production in which two talented pianists in a four-handed recital make you think there‘s an orchestra on the small stage. Doing four-handers takes some alacrity as the hands repeatedly cross each other.
It‘s an imaginary master class named in homage to Nijinsky, choreographed by Faizal Zeghoudi, text by Marie-Christine Mazzola, danced by four fine interpreters of his art, and narrated by Bernard Pisani, once a dancer, now an actor. I loved the dance. I was less entranced by the pretentious text.
I liked this clever pas de deux. But don‘t think classical ballet, think very contemporary male-female dance. “Et Si” means “And if.” First you see a table, and under that legs. Everything above the table is blacked out. He is twisting. She kicks off red spike heels. You use your imagination. Very smart. She is cool. The twists are erratic, movements are jagged. Like the relationship.
Aug 21, 2018 – This is my interview today on Fault Lines with Garland Nixon and Lee Stranahan. I took the open letter in Time that William Browder wrote to President Trump before his meeting with Russian President Putin and simply transposed it. For example, Putin values money far more than human life became Browder values money far more than human life.
The Tjimur Dance Theatre of Taiwan presents a finely designed contemporary dance inspired by the culture of the Païwan tribe, an aboriginal group of the island‘s south. Choreographed by Baru Madiljin, “Varhung – Heart to Heart” is slow, expressive, angular. It tells stories of people‘s lives, loves, difficulties though the cultivation and harvesting of the ginger plant.
Fascinating to see play written in 1925 that has the politics of a play that could be written today. It was penned by Miles Malleson, a prominent playwright, screenwriter and actor of the time who used his work to promote progressive politics. He was a socialist, pacifist and supporter of women‘s suffrage. This is very finely, subtly directed by Jenn Thompson.
It starts with cavemen with bows and arrows. Stick and string become like bass. A stick turns into a musical pipe. A clap is rhythm. A move to wood and metal. Then a bagpipe with a symbol of the British lion. This production by Richard Navarro of Le Rouge Groupe at the Avignon Theater Festival OFF is delightful and fascinating and shows how music came from paleo grottos to the electronic sphere. It is clever, witty, and quite an original.
Think a chamber music concert is static? Think again. A brilliant production at the Avignon Theater Festival OFF was a mélange of “The Four Seasons” of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) and the lesser known Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) “The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires,” created by violinist Marianne Piketty.
“Rosa Luxemburg Karabett” is an historical play with music about the life of the Russian revolutionary who became an activist in German politics, opposed WWI, was imprisoned and, after the war, was murdered. The production reflects the tradition of the German political cabaret.
For clarity about politics, “Brexit” at the Avignon Theater Festival does as well as any pundits. It‘s a clever mime and vaudeville comic take by a pair as a verbally dueling father and son.
The best production I saw at the 2018 Avignon Theater Festival was “Dance ˜n Speak Easy,” a stunning work by Wanted Posse set in the U.S. 1930s prohibition era. The mood is swagger, the language is hip hop, the undercurrent is aggression.
Aug 17, 2018 – The New Yorker story about Browder: How do you get credibility for a story that is mostly lies? You throw in a few negatives about the person you are going to white-wash. Then you repeat all his unproved assertions as if they were fact. And you don‘t bother to provide evidence. And you ignore the major story you ought to be telling.
July 20, 2018 –
Dear President Trump,
William Browder sent you a letter before your meeting with President Putin, and I‘d like to offer you a perspective about Mr. Browder that you probably aren‘t getting elsewhere. I am copying the form of his letter, but substituting Browder where he wrote Putin, and including facts you and the public probably don‘t know. Though there are indications your State Department does know.
Brit Henry Naylor‘s play about the moral choices of people trapped in the Middle East horror and the western reporters of it could not be more timely, or more searing. The dialogue is stirring, often tough, and poetic. It is part of a series he has presented at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe the last few years about the human suffering and the ethical challenges posed by the region’s crises.
“Win That War!” sing workers in a parachute factory in a town about 1,000 miles south of Chicago. It‘s a striking transformation of Georges Bizet‘s opera “Carmen,” about a worker in a Spanish cigar factory in 1820, to wartime US in 1943 with a book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.
Shakespeare‘s “Othello” at the Delacorte in Central Park seemed more about racism to me than it ever had before. Under the clear, commanding direction of Ruben Santiago-Hudson and featuring the mesmerizing, almost painfully gut-wrenching acting of Chukwudi Iwuji as Othello, you imagine what a lifetime of racial slights has done to his judgment and trust.
June 15, 2018 – Reuters announces that it has trust principles committed to unbiased reliable news. So how does it deal with the fact it subscribes to the Russophobic meme that leads to fake news like this?
More than 60 years after its charm overwhelmed the American stage, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s“My Fair Lady,” with revivals through the years, is back, and this time there‘s a feminist kick. And some class solidarity. They are changes from America’s reactionary 1950s when it premiered. Credit director Bartlett Sher. The street flower seller Eliza (Lauren Ambrose) is a sweetheart, and you get the sense of a supportive society among the sweepers and other night workers at Covent Garden
June 8, 2018 – This article by Michael Sainato in The Observer (London) recites the fake news we are used to: Magnitsky a whistleblowing Russian lawyer jailed after tagging officials for tax-refund fraud. However, there are some new elements in the story, about Renaissance Capital, which we have to assume are skewed by William Browder as he is the fount of all the media’s fake news about the Browder/Magnitsky.
June 2, 2018 – Radio interview on Fault Lines discusses arrest of William Browder in Spain and the meaning of Paul Manafort’s cryptic notes of the Trump Tower meeting when explained by the Judiciary Committee testimony of Natalia Veselnitskaya.
June 1, 2018 – Rolling Stone just posted some Bill Browder fake news in an article by stenographer Seth Hettena. Familiar fabrications: Browder‘s accountant Sergei Magnitsky is again a “lawyer” who was jailed after he blew the whistle on a $230m scam. Browder tracked every penny of it; it‘s a first time for that lie. Magnitsky was beaten with rubber batons and convicted after his death. Browder was expelled from Russia for exposing Gazprom corruption.
