September 9, 2008

Political Set Design 101

I'm still getting caught up on reactions to the conventions, and some of the best analysis is coming from Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones. Here's his take on the relative scale of the Obama and McCain acceptance speeches:

Barack Obama's eloquent inspirational words sailed out into a stadium and danced with potentially dangerous independence on a huge, populist sea. The Republicans took the opposite tactic, focusing the viewer ever more inwards on McCain's gripping, heroic, explicitly personal story, which McCain told in quiet, direct, declarative sentences that grew only more intimate and confessional as the speech progressed.

Even when everything is reduced to flat-screen images, space and architecture can shape the message in potent ways.




September 7, 2008

Music to the Max


Like the other minimalists of his day, John Adams used to fool around with short, repetitive phrases and structures. But he soon discovered the joy of big orchestras and forms.
His "Son of Chamber Symphony" isn't exactly big, but it's awesome in its speed and dexterity. Like a relay race staged on a roller coaster, the melodic batons are passed deftly between instruments as they swoop and tumble past each other. At Turner Hall Saturday night, Present Music's had a bit of trouble keeping things firmly on the tracks, but Adams "Son," the "big number" on the program, was great fun nonetheless, with the ghost of Karl Stalling, the great musical mind behind decades of Warner Brothers cartoons, hovering over the proceedings with tapping toes and a toothy grin.
Read more about the Present Music concert at Milwaukee Magazine's Culture Club.

September 5, 2008

Going Local


Okay, enough about the theater of politics. Milwaukee's performance scene is about to kick in to high gear, and it's time to pay attention. I'll be at Turner Hall tomorrow night for Present Music's season kickoff, which plays on the history of the ballroom by including various dance variations, as well as featuring fencers, and various other Turner fitness aficionados. I'm eager to hear John Adams' "Son of Chamber Symphony" and will certainly stay for the postmodern vaudeville of Scarring Party. I talked to PM's Kevin Stalheim and the Turner's Julilly Kohler for WUWM's "Lake Effect": Listen to it here.

September 4, 2008

The American Idol Candidate

Any theater type knows that it's all about casting.
My initial "what-were-they-thinking" skepticism about the Sarah Palin choice withered painfully on the vine as I watched a little of her acceptance speech. It's not surprising that it took so long to sink in, but with all the punditry surrounding her political positions and inexperience, the obvious is often invisible.
When Palin talked of her husband, and told the cheering crowd, "He's my guy," she surely warmed the hearts of millions, both men and women, who don't give a hoot about her politics or affiliations. Clinton and Bush's image management teams went way out of their way to craft their "just plain folks" image. But Clinton's birthin' in a town called Hope and Bush's (some say) calculated and well-honed simpleton rhetoric just tried to mask their silver spoon or liberal elite pedigree.
Palin, on the other hand, is the real thing for many Americans. And that geniuneness is her appeal. It offers a solid tap into the font of American cynicism about politics. And it makes her someone to root for. In a country where American Idol and its variations are watched by more people than conventions and even Olympic contests, McCain and his people knew that we love seeing (and falling in love with) people like us rise to the top--whatever their song or whatever they stand for.

September 3, 2008

I gotcher theatuh right-chere!!



Milwaukee stages have not been completely quiet this summer. Milwaukee Chamber Theatre's Well was a funny and trenchant look at real life, and what theater can and can't do to capture and perhaps shape it. Ruth Schudson sat in the center of the production with great charm and gravitas.
Danceworks also hosted another great summer series of local and national choreography. The UWM Dance Department offered concerts as well.

But why am I thinking that everything this fall will be upstaged by McCain-Obama slapdown? It couldn't be the rhetorical circus surrounding Gov. Palin? Or the convention spectacles? I'm not quite ready to call it Shakespearean or Shavian. That would be a disservice to a world that is very much its own.