The Arts – Page 39 – an intuitive perspective

February 12, 2022February 12, 2022

Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park! Part 2

Just two months ago I wrote the first post about some wonderful environmental sculptures that have popped up along Lincoln Memorial Drive in Milwaukee’s Lake Park area. These sculptures enhance the portion of the roadside that are wild and natural in our urban environment…and although parts of these are man made they are truly sensitive to their natural environments. Here is the original post: Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park!

And although I am identifying their locations, if you visit them please be respectful of the work and their environment. These are truly a joy to experience.

This first one is relatively monumental compared to most of the others. It is very reminiscent of one of those that I documented in my original post (see below). Again, this one resides just west of Lincoln Memorial drive along the bluff near what any unreconstructed hippie of an older Milwaukee era would refer to as the alternate site. Here we see a number of oval discs that appear to be made of water washed and formed pieces of concrete and black top paving materials. I was able to get a bit closer to these so they may have had some human intervention to enhance the natural feel of eroded materials. But serious thought has been put into their placement and relationship to the space as well as finding the perfect fallen log for the base.

I didn’t notice this one until mid-January. This may have been the fourth piece that I felt in the back of my mind back in December but couldn’t find at the time. It may have required the full winter drought environment to become noticeable. Or it may be a newer piece.

This next piece is probably the most sober and for me the least successful…partly due to its stark nature and maybe because of the relationship of the living trees just beside it. This one is also west of LMD, across from the lagoon, about a half mile north of the Milwaukee Art Museum. This one is the nearest to the road. But instead of a piece of eroded paving material this one appears to be fashioned from a local piece of granite or quartz. More color than the other pieces.

And this third and final one is certainly a new one. Even last fall it would have clearly stood out from its surroundings. I saw it immediately during my first drive to UWM in January for the start of the spring semester. And a friend of mine, Beth Vandervort, who travels the bike trail along the bluff also commented on it on Facebook and posted a picture shortly after it appeared in January.

Now this is significantly different than all of the others. It doesn’t have any rock or pavement pieces attached to an onsite log or stump or fallen tree. It doesn’t elude a sense of calm or tranquility or sensitivity to place. Instead it is red and right in your face and as Beth said, this is “The Earth’s circulatory system revealed.”

So my question…is this the same artist or someone who felt the soul of the other pieces and is putting a new and different stamp on our psyche? What do you think?

This one is up on the bluff above the bicycle path west of LMD and just north of the Milwaukee Art Museum. But given its color it is currently very easy to spot from the drive.

I am concerned about these sculptures. I don’t remember seeing the first one that I documented in my previous post recently. So please be respectful of the sculptures and the environment if you go to visit them.

AND AGAIN: if any of you know the artist, please share that information in the comments section so that I can properly attribute these here. And if you are aware of other ones in the park, please leave the locations in the comments because I would like to go see them in the wild!

I would really really like to interview the artist. I have a lot of questions about how and why and the future! These are exciting pieces and warrant our respect and admiration.

COMMENTERS NOTE: if you have never commented here before, your first comment won’t appear until I have approved it so don’t think you are doing something wrong! But after that first one is approved, your comments should appear immediately.

And this last image is repeated from my first post and just for comparison with the first sculpture shown above. Again, the first post: Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park!

February 12, 2022February 12, 2022

PSA: Red Bull Theater Calls For Submissions For Their 2022 Short New Play Festival!

I am just passing along the announcement and here’s the link to the submissions webpage:

OVERVIEW: Red Bull Theater’s Short New Play Festival returns on Monday, July 11, 2022. Six brand new short plays will be selected from an open-submission process and presented in live in-person staged readings alongside two new short plays by commissioned writers, STEPHEN ADLY GUIRGIS (Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, Our Lady of 121st Street) and LARISSA FASTHORSE (The Thanksgiving Play, What Would Crazy Horse Do?).
INSPIRATION: We are looking for work with classical inspiration. The word ALCHEMY is just a jumping-off point for creative thematic juices. Review our Mission and take a look through our history of Readings and Productions to see the kind of work we have done. Respond to a play we’ve produced or choose a classic of your own to adapt. You might riff on a classical character, borrow a classical milieu, or be inspired to create a brand new style of dramatic verse. Finding inspiration from classics beyond the traditional Western canon is welcome. We hope you will be in dialogue with classical theater in a multitude of creative and surprising ways.
SUBMISSION FEE: There is a $10 submission fee.
DEADLINE: 12 NOON EST on MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2022. NO EXCEPTIONS.
SELECTED PLAYWRIGHTS: will receive a staged reading of their submission as part of the festival on Monday, July 11, 2022, performed by an ensemble company of some of New York City’s finest actors.
will receive a commissioning fee of $400 and will receive a travel reimbursement of up to $400 to attend the festival rehearsal and performance on Monday, July 11 in New York City.
will be consulted on choices for the shared ensemble cast, will have final script approval, and will have the opportunity to have their play published and licensed by Stage Rights as part of our Red Bull Shorts series.

There are some other pieces of information and guidelines that playwrights will want to know and a bit of ‘fine print’…which can be found on the Red Bull website.

DEADLINE: 12 NOON EST on MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2022. NO EXCEPTIONS.

February 9, 2022

Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist Streaming At Red Bull Theater!

This has only about a week left to go…streaming information is here!

Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist is set in a time of plagues…Jacobean plagues…and the root story is cons conning the cons while the elite chill in the country. Now, I have not read Jonson’s original, but I think that I am safe in saying that Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation strays from Jonson because it is so damn pertinent to our current pandemic! And I doubt that Jonson’s audience would have gathered in all of the current plays nuances either. But I can’t say enough about Hatcher’s adaptation. It speaks to our times despite the out of date premise and the absurd situations depicted. This is a marvel of a play.

But certainly, this is a farce. And a laugh out loud farce. And one of the best that I’ve seen in quite a while.

Our story…a wealthy aristocrat had run off to the country to avoid the plague and left a serving man in the city to look after his home there. Said serving man has gotten involved with a charlatan and his female accomplice…they have been using the mansion as a base to fleece a number of wealthy gentry through any number of different devices. And…

“chaos is at hand!”

And I am guessing director Jesse Berger should get credit for casting The Alchemist…and the cast is marvelous…after watching this I can’t imagine who else could have played these roles more effectively. I have two favorites…we’ll get to that.

And Mr. Berger also has to get a standing ovation for his direction of this play. The complex timing, the movement of actors around the set, the fluid entries and exits, the swift and complicated costume changes all go on without a hitch…and he had the actors well prepared for what is a difficult text to speak and keep straight! The action is non-stop.

We start with our nefarious threesome who have taken up shop in the mansion…Subtle, played by Reg Rogers, is by turns the alchemist, a seer, and a teacher…Face, played by Manoel Feliciano, who is the gentlemen who is left to care for the house plus a number of characters embodied to help Subtle with their scams…and Dol, played by Jennifer Sanchez, who is the female distraction or assistant or temptress in their schemes. And although they’ve all sworn to get along and co-operate and share their ill got gains…at any number of points they display a certain willingness to cheat the others out of theirs!

And it is these three who are most pressed upon to keep separate the various characters and roles they play as part of their schemes, straight along with their costuming and accents. Challenging in the least…but these three pull it off with gusto. Subtle to Face as they play through (much to the delight of this audience) “you wanted another part!”

And on to my favorites: Jacob Ming-Trent plays Mammon, “thou rotund sinner”. An apparently rich but greedy man of the neighborhood…and probably the character that lost the most in the various swindles…although often the source of his own undoing…and who actually gets the LAST word if not actually the last lines in the play. But Mr. Ming-Trent plays him with swagger and finesse and a bold love of life…and a certain pursuit of happiness that is a lot of fun to watch. And even though he is accompanied by his skeptical friend, Surly, here played by Louis Mastillo, Mammon never loses hope…until the bitter end. And Surly is my other favorite…ever skeptical…and just as devious as any other character. He often talks directly to the audience…informing them of the obvious or explaining his own actions…with the bravado of an extra in a mob movie, Brooklyn accent and all!

And we have a constant parade of others who seek advice, boons, requests, lessons, or an alchemist’s stone. Dapper, played by Carson Elrod, who is horribly unlucky at gambling and wishes that Subtle provide him with a familiar or spirit to bring him good luck at the gaming tables. You can probably guess where this ends up. But it gets pretty convoluted and hilarious before play’s end. Dugger, played by Nathan Christopher, a lovelorn tobacconist, who wants Subtle to advise a wealthy widow to select him as her next husband. The widow Pliant, played by Theresa Avia Lim, has more up her sleeve and apparently skirts than is apparent at first glance. Did I forget to tell you this was also something of a bawdy tale? My bad…it certainly is! Ananais, an Antibaptist who seeks a have a stone of his own to turn base metals into gold. He resists handing over payment without results which also leads to unexpected turmoil and comedy…and maybe a bit of bawd as well. Ananais is played by Stephen Derosa. And finally Kastril, Pliant’s brother who seeks help from Subtle to find a knight to marry his sister and lessons in argument! Allen Tedder provides us with a very outrageous Kastril.

Me thinks this version ends in a different; much different vein than Ben Jonson originally intended…but this one is sublime. So there you have it ” and a Shetland pony.”

As I said above, this streams online until February 14, 2022 and here is the link! It is a pay what you can presentation so please be as generous as you are able. I don’t think this play will disappoint you!