Monthly Archives: September 2009

A SparkNotes Hamlet, with a (hopefully) more colorful review

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I was not the only person in the darkened theater to breathe an inward sigh of relief when Jude Law took the stage. His daughter had been born the night before, so there had been some uncertainty as to whether the star of Hamlet would indeed be playing Hamlet. He was, and the show went on at the Broadhurst Theater, which is hosting a limited run of this successful London production, to general applause and more than a few chuckles. Chuckles and Hamlet might not seem to go together, and please do not be led to think that director Michael Grandage is exploring the humorous side of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Continued here on Blogcritics.

Dumbo Art Festival

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Starting today, the DUMBO Arts Under the Bridge Festival is kicking off in–you guessed it–DUMBO. Artists contribute temporary site specific installations and transform the area. Many artists also open their studios to the public. Normally I would just wander around and see what their is to see, but I’m doing something a little bit more tomorrow afternoon.

I agreed to help lead an art walk. Unlike a place like Chelsea, here we’ll just have to see what there is to see. But that should be a lot of fun. It supposed to be wonderful weather all weekend so, if you feel like some serendipitous artsy wandering, come out.

Coming up Roses: Will Ryman at Marlborough Gallery

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Ah, the purity of roses in the sunlight! I can almost smell the scent wafting over me. But is that a cigarette butt I see at the bottom of the stem? Oh yes, it is. It seems things are not all peachy keen in Will Ryman’s oversized hyperbolic rose garden. Up at Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea through October 10, these sculptures by Ryman are well worth a wander through this quasi-fairy tale world, if only for the fun of it.

Some signs of garbage and bugs might about, but all the same the rose garden strikes a happily note. How can you argue with ballet pink and Venetian red? The bugs are kind of cute, even the bag of Wise potato chips and the crushed Starbucks cup seem colorful and cheery.

The artist was trying to create a rodent’s perspective on a NYC rose garden, which I have to say makes the experience almost too literal to be interesting. Walking through the clusters of roses makes you aware of their overwhelming stature and it increases your sense of being in some kind of wonderland. One can only think the black aphids and cigarette butts are meant to disturb that experience. It misses that mark, but maybe it is supposed to be more ambiguous than that. Entitled A New Beginning, perhaps this installation is meant to be hopeful.

What do you think?