CinePhillyist Reviews... The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Playlist Rewind: Shonen Knife at Johnny Brenda's
BalletX Fall Series Begins TONIGHT
Where Have All Our T-Shirts Gone?
Phillyist Playlist: 311 at the Borgata Event Center
This week’s quote comes from the great Ben Kingsley. It’s actually advice to film actors, but Kingsley has acted on the stage before (and how!), and we’re sure he’d give the same advice to stage actors. The advice goes: “You can throw away the privilege of acting, but that would be such a shame. The tribe has elected you to tell its story. You are the shaman/healer, that's what the storyteller is, and I think it's important for actors to appreciate that. Too often actors think it's all about them, when in reality it's all about the audience being able to recognize themselves in you. The more you pull away from the public, the less power you have on screen.” Now, on with the listings! (And don’t be dismayed – just because it’s a quiet week doesn’t mean there’s not some great theatre to catch!)
Broadway Rhapsody - We cannot tell you how much this concept excites the musical theatre fan in us. August 3-13. For tickets and information, call the box office at 215.785.0100.
Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding - It’s like My Big Fat Greek Wedding for a South Philly audience. Open run. Tickets and information at 1.800.660.TINA.
Come Blow Your Horn - After you’ve been practicing yoga for several years, that is. August 4-19. Tickets online.
The Children of Fatima - We’re guessing there’s a lot of guilt in this play. Through August 6. Ticket information is online.
Out of Order - Yikes! Just like the bathroom at the restaurant we ate at last night! Through September 3. For reservations, call 610.565.4211.
The Lion King - It’s the circle of life! Through September 10. Tickets are selling out quickly, but are available online.
Menopause: The Musical - The name says it all, doesn't it? Shows at the Society Hill Playhouse, Wednesday through Saturday at 8 PM, again at 4PM on Saturday, and Sunday at 2 PM and 5:30 PM. Tickets are $45. Call 215.923.0210 for reservations. The Society Hill Playhouse is located at 507 South 8th Street in Philadelphia.
If you've got a theater listing in the Philadelphia area, let us know! Also feel absolutely free to post other listings on the comments page!
The shadowy figure you see above is the afore-quoted Ben Kingsley. Photo via SpotlightCD.
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My first theater teacher (at Brown) claims he travelled around the world studying with shamans. The first things he showed us were videos of gorillas and shamans. Also the first techniques he taught us. (Coincidentally, I happened to pick up Mircea Eliade's seminal "Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy" at random the summer before.)
Went on to study shamaninistic practices more extensively in John Emigh's class on world theater, and then in an anthropology class specifically devoted to shamanism. (The professor showed us endless slides of her travels through Siberia and Mongolia. So many raindeer photos....) Then the next semester too in a seminar on ritual theater.
But most Westerners who describe themselves as shamans seem like somewhat pretentious posers to me. They don't know what they're talking about. Then again, that's what Plato takes to be the essence of the rhapsode's art (see his Ion... it's not overwhelming long and drawn out for a working person, but it goes deep enough to satisfy... my namesake, Artaud, on the other hand---
To break through language in order to touch life is to create or recreate the theater; the essential thing is not to believe that this act must remain sacred, i.e., set apart the essential thing is to believe that not just anyone can create it, and that there must be a preparation.
This leads to the rejection of the usual limitations of man and man's powers, and infinitely extends the frontiers of what is called reality.
We must believe in a sense of life renewed by the theater, a sense of life in which man makes himself master of what does not yet exist, and brings it into being. And everything that has not been born can still be brought to life if we are not satisfied to remain mere recording organisms.
Furthermore, when we speak the word "life", it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from the surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach. And if there is one hellish, truly accursed thing in our time, it is our artistic dallying with forms, instead of being like victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames.
)....