round 1 – GOYA A double bill at Barcelona’s CaixaForum: Spanish icon Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) and his French counterpart Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), utterly distinctive artists, comparable in their contrasts. Each broached grim, often violent subject matter imaginatively, manipulating colour and tone to heighten emotion to make fantastical scenes seem real. Goya, portrait… Read more »
Author: Alx Phillips
REVIEW: Divisions: the hand of fate
Tonight only … Divisions, a multi-sensorial representation of Sophocles’ classic Oedipus Rex, is a hi-tech, tragi-comic, mini-masterpiece.
REVIEW: Quitt, a convenient truth
The Spanish press called it ‘relevant’, ‘prescient’ even ‘prophetic’ (La Vanguardia). Quitt, based on the 1973 play by Austrian political playwright Peter Handke, and adapted for the Teatre Lliure by artistic director Lluís Pascual, was a thoughtful and entertaining piece – yet it was too easy on the audience.
LINKS: Paradoxes of the anti-capitalist kind
Click here for Andy Beckett’s excellent book review of Paul Mason’s Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere. “The failings of the free market may have given the protesters their cause … but the free market has also given them the means to take political advantage.” Click here for Tom Lamont’s interview with Alan Moore, the creator… Read more »
IMAGE: Threats and extortion
Strict austerity measures having had the opposite effect, El Corte Ingles and Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona further contribute to the recession.
IMAGE: Power to the press
WHAT’S ON? Quitt
Lluís Pasqual, director of Barcelona’s most international theatre, Teatre Lliure, has announced that a government budget cut of €614.000 has forced the theatre to end its main season in May, and cancel three productions in their entirety.
WHAT’S ON? Playing with Fire
More DRAMA this weekend as actor and director Julian Wickham makes his debut as a playwright. Playing With Fire puts the acquired skills of students from his Barcelona-based English Drama School to the test.
WHAT’S ON? Glengarry Glen Ross
Sharp, snazzy adaptation of David Mamet’s brutal comedy, with the ingenious twist of an all-female cast. Best €8 I’ve spent in while. See it next weekend at the Riereta (take gloves). There are surtitles in Catalan.
DRAMATIC EXIT pt.3: the full sweep
last week on DRAMATIC EXIT … In the sneak out we explored what to do when enough is enough and even a “goodbye” seems superfluous. In the scatter we covered how a public exit, executed with panache, can rattle up sad and sedentary members of society, and shine an interrogatory light on the more ridiculous… Read more »