Women Beware Women

The National Theatre’s current production of Thomas Middleton’s Women Beware Women sets the Jacobean tragedy in a modern day court, where the Duke can have his wicked way with whoever he so wishes; where incestuous love is declared between an uncle and his young niece, Isabella; where the women, young and old, deceive their husbands, friends, family, and not always in the name of love. The play cleverly pits its female characters against one another in a game of twists and turns, that, despite its humorous beginning, ends in appalling, yet essential, tragedy.

Middleton, who first published the play in 1657, has outstanding clarity of vision in creating this scenario; for though the women are all suppressed by the same rules of living in a world controlled by men, their bickering and fighting which culminates in more than one instance of murder shows no females united and certainly no team front against the male presences in their lives. With the seemingly friendly Noblewoman trapping the Widow and Bianca into her house, and ultimately Bianca into a cruel attack by the Duke Sordido, a bitter underworld is gradually uncovered beneath the façade of the merry Tuscan court.

The play’s dénouement was brilliantly conceived, with an incredibly imaginative response to the murderous result of various deceptions in the choreography and set. With the stage spinning, masked dancers and characters whirled their way around killing, poisoning and strangling each other. When the ball ended, the scene was of devastation, and the true meaning of the play crystal clear, for women to beware not only the strength and control of men, but the underhand schemes of their own sex.

Women Beware Women is currently on at the National Theatre
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/56097/productions/women-beware-women.html

Tate Modern Turns Ten: Where from here?

This weekend, Tate Modern celebrated its 10th birthday. The former disused Bankside Power Station could not be more different today, having gained worldwide status as the home of one of Britain’s most popular and talked about art galleries. The iconic Turbine Hall played host for three days to over seventy artists from across the globe, with the floor divided into small spaces for each individual or group to show off their installations, conceptual pieces and other interactive ideas.



It was interesting to see what the challenge of displaying art in very confined space throws up. Some had simply dominated the floorspace, while others had used to great effect the airspace above their spot to stand out in a sea of people and objects; indeed from above the scene was not dissimilar to a flea market, crowds surging in and out in search of the best and most interesting ‘stall’.

The onetime creative director of the Millennium Dome, Stephen Bayley, has written a fantastic article in the Times this month discussing Tate Modern and its crucial role in establishing not only a platform for emerging and upcoming artists, but also the British art market itself. Interestingly, this weekend made me also ask Bayley’s question, what is art? to myself, as the Sunday afternoon finale of the weekend was nothing more than a rather tacky karaoke show in the hall. As Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody was shrieked out by a group of overexcited teens from a makeshift stage, the onetime elegance and mystery of the building started to fade, and the question of its purpose after ten years of making money loomed large. Indeed, as the gallery’s own recent Pop Life exhibition highlighted the almost ridiculous levels to which you can take art (Andrea Fraser’s sixty minute sex tape springs to mind…), following these celebrations, is it possible that Tate Modern has it become a victim of its own cause?

No Soul for Sale http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/nosoulforsale/default.shtm

http://www.nosoulforsale.com/2010

India Noir and The Indian Portrait

Hot on the heels of other museums and galleries who have enjoyed a renaissance by keeping their doors open a little later into the night, the National Portrait Gallery began its Late Shift series on Thursday 13th May, with great success. I headed down the following day, to experience the India Noir events, in conjunction with the gallery’s current exhibition, The Indian Portrait 1560-1860.

With live music from various DJs, fusion groups and the fantastic ‘Flutebox’- a beatboxer who played the flute at the same time, the gallery was certainly bustling with a new excitement. An interesting tour compared some of the gallery’s greatest Tudor masterpieces with the contemporary Indian portraits, uniting the styles of different ages and continents through the common themes of patronage, propaganda and painting technique. Thus, Jahangir holding a globe (1617), the largest Mughal painting known, was shown to also employ the same godlike inspiration that can be seen in several portraits of Elizabeth I, who was placed at the top of the world with all the countries beneath her feet.

For the more creatively courageous, there was the chance to make an Indian flower garland, which certainly was harder to assemble than it first appeared!

Late Shift at the National Portrait Gallery is on every Thursday and Friday until 9pm. More details available at http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/late-shift/late-shift-home.php

For more information on India Noir, see http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/duplicate-of-keep-in-touch/india-noir-late.php

Birdsong with a difference

Down at London's Barbican Centre is the chance to hear some very unusual music; music created and played out by zebra finches as they move through a landscape of electric guitars, drums and other assorted musical instruments.

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot is a French artist who looks to explore the sounds of daily life in new ways. With a background as a composer, Boursier-Mougenot now creates 'live soundscapes' in fascinating ways.

A video sample of his work can be seen below; a big hit on YouTube, it demonstrates how the birds' activities and usual routines, such as nesting, can be captured in a live song generated by their movements.



Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's work is on show at the Barbican Centre (Curve Gallery) until 23rd May 2010

Another Friday Late...

The date was the 30th, the day a Friday... a combination that can only mean one thing: another trip down to the V&A for after-hours fun in the museum at a Friday Late.


For April, the museum was celebrating its exhibition Quilts, reviewed on here a few weeks ago, and thus the theme was needlework, stitching and sewing. Crowds eagerly gathered in the entrance hall waiting for their Coats Craft Stitch Surgery packs: we were very lucky to lay our hands on some of the little craft bags complete with sewing kits and scraps of material considering the pushing and shoving going on!

Without doubt though the highlight of the evening was ‘Girl Racer’, a chance for us girls (and one boy) to show off our speedy (?!) sewing skills. Pitted against three others manning sewing machines, I had to trace a line along a 2m paper racetrack avoiding the edge; a harder task than it first seemed!

Friday Lates are on at the V&A every last Friday of the month

http://www.vam.ac.uk/activ_events/events/friday_evenings/friday_late/events/april_2010/index.html

http://www.coatscrafts.co.uk/

London's Elephant Parade

Over 250 superbly decorated elephant sculptures have found themselves dotted all over London. Contributed by artists and fashion designers, including the likes of Tommy Hilfiger, Lulu Guinness and Marc Quinn, these beautiful models will later be sold on to raise money for the endangered Asian elephants. Get spotting!

The Elephant Parade London event runs from 3rd May - 29th June 2010, with the auction taking place at Sotheby's on 30th June 2010.

http://elephantparadelondon.org/

The Real Thing

The Real Thing is enthused with wit, ingenuity, Pirandellian games constantly turning on their head any proposed thesis on the ‘real thing’ which eventually come round to an unequivocal statement of what it really is: love through commitment, love through pain, love through ‘personal, final, uncompromised’ knowledge of each other.

Deception, in numerous forms, arises in the play – from husband to wife, father to daughter (Debbie scolds her parents for making sex such a ‘mystery’ to her), art, life, politics… Does Brodie, a young political activist, really write about the ‘real thing’ as espoused by Annie or he just ‘announcing every stale revelation’ in the endlessly repetitive story of politics? Henry’s urbane, witty detachment ponders the imponderable – how does an artist write about love? Despite being himself in the throws of passion and love for Annie, he never does write ‘that’ play for her. And the ultimate, wicked irony is that the play that he does end up writing, out of desperate, painful love for Annie, is Brodie’s.

The play is beautifully acted and set. Toby Stephens plays Henry superbly; his acerbic wit, charm and brilliant articulacy still intact even when faced with his terrible predicament. Yet, we also see his sudden helplessness: ‘Love me because I’m in pain. No good. Not in very good taste. So, dignified cuckoldry is a difficult trick, but it can be done.’ Hattie Morahan plays a fantastically attractive Annie, both forthright and vulnerable. And Louise Calf plays a great role as Debbie, who at sweet seventeen and in her ten minute appearance on stage, appears to understand more about the real thing than any of the worldly adults. Seriously, it’s fantastic; just go and see it.


The Real Thing is showing at The Old Vic 5th June.
http://www.old-vic-theatre.com/