Hello all! Anthony Darnell here.

Been a while since my last posting. Keeping myself super, super busy. Traveling this strange and interesting country, making theatre, and undertaking a little self-evaluation.

About a month ago now, I went to Seattle, Washington to visit all my dear friends in The Satori Group, and to participate in our first administrative retreat. We spent a weekend amidst the grandeur of luminous mountains and the pristine silence of a small cabin, location: the middle of no-where.

Slowly, we worked out the structure, vision statement, mission statement, and leadership of this burgeoning company of ours.

I can’t help but say it was a difficult weekend, not because we fought, but because of the since of self-sacrifice and honor I encountered. It inspired a tremendous sorrow and pride all at the same time. Making me truly grateful to be in the room and involved with such beautiful individuals. I am proud to call myself a member of The Satori Group, and can only wait to see where we progress from here.

Seattle is a wonderful town. Never before have I seen such clean streets, and diverse cultural districts. I swear everyone there is no older than 35, and the hippest of the hipsters.

Spent a day in The People’s Republic of Freemont (part of Seattle), where they had a 20-foot-tall statue of Lenin, an enormous ‘troll under a bridge,’ and the best yet, The Empty Space. By chance, we encountered The Empty Space, the theatre that housed Peter Brook and his fantastical creations. We explored it, stood in the theatre, rummaged through old production photos, and talked to the owner. It is vacant now, a true empty space. I imagined, while standing there in awe, Satori taking it over, but those are grand illusions for another time.

When I returned to Cincinnati I had a week left till the opening of Bare: the musical, now playing at Know Theatre of Cincinnati. We’ve opened, and the show is going strong. If you’ve seen it, I am the goofy, socially awkward kid in the sock-cap, who appears sporadically.

In the mean time I’ve been working on The Satori Group’s upcoming production at The Cincinnati Fringe Festival: RSVP. I’m working with two other group members, CCM’s Adrienne Clark and from the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City, Spike Friedman.

The project is extremely exciting. Our audience is the star in RSVP. Meaning, they do all the acting, and get to watch others act around them. All this is accomplished by wearing headphones and doing as informed.

Look us up at:

www.cincyfringe.com
www.satori-group.com

We plan on work-shopping the piece in Seattle first, and then bringing the production to Cincinnati. It will be our first attempt at bringing a bit of Seattle to Cincinnati. We’ll see how it goes…

I've also been spending a lot of time with self-evaluation. I'm at a crossroad right now and have to choose which path to set out on. I've been referring to it with a friend as, 'righting my story.' Coming back in contact with myself. We'll see if that happens in the end. It is decidedly, a strange journey. And then again...

Till next time.

Anthony Darnell

 
ps I WON!!! what?! what a team effort! I have to thank any and all of you who helped me achieve this! the prize package includes:

A feautured album ad in Billboard Magazine ad (April 19th issue!), my tracks submitted to a&r reps, a round-trip ticket on Southwest Airlines, and $10k. I have so many to thank and I thought Cincy would be a good place to start... i'm so grateful.

Aaron
myspace.com/aaronlavignemusic

---

Get in touch in an instant. Get Windows Live Messenger now.

 
Hey guys.  I'm not sure WHO exactly is voting for me on famecast.com, but if you have been.... You rock my face off!  one more week and its REALLLLY close! all votes are crucial! 1st place is 10 grand.... fingers crossed!

here's the Final 5 link:






cheers,

a-ron

ps thank you all so much

 
Hey Cincy! It's Sammy Kanter from Transit Five Productions here, writing my first entry. I hope to bring a new perspective to the blog, writing about college life in addition to starting a
company with my high school buddies back here in Cincinnati. Not only will I update you on what I'm doing at school, but I'll also fill you in on what members of T5 are doing at their
various schools around the country.

On the T5 front, we just spent the weekend in Cincinnati holding auditions for our summer season. How about that snowstorm? At least I'm on spring break, and I'm currently at Disney
World right now! By the way, if you're in Disney anytime soon, check out "Finding Nemo the Musical" at the Animal Kingdom…great original music!

Anyway, I'm a junior at Syracuse University in upstate New York (talk about snow, this weekend was nothing!). I'm majoring in journalism with a minor in theater. You might ask, "how is a
journalism major relevant to theater?" I have some answers to that. I'm not sure exactly what I want to do with my life, but right now it's looking like I want to be in the theater
management/arts admin. field. I saw Syracuse with a great communication program, but also with arts opportunities to supplement my education. I realized an undergrad liberal arts degree
would best prepare me for the future. Not only would I learn to write from the best professionals in the world, I could find ways to apply things from the classroom to the arts through
Transit Five or other opportunities at school. Plus, I've been told grad school is for perfecting your craft.

At SU, I found it worked. I minored in theater, where I've taken a few theater literature and acting courses, and most notably a directing course from Bob Moss, the former Producing Artistic
Director of the Syracuse Stage. Brilliant man! I'm the co-producer of the First Year Players (FYP), a completely student-run theater organization on campus. FYP takes a group of 45
upperclassman that work on the production staff to welcome and enrich the college experience for 25 first-year students who make up the cast. The organization has been at SU from 16
years, and over 2000 people attend our productions in three nights. We're doing "Fame" this year, which I'll elaborate on when the show occurs in a couple of weeks.

I'm also the music director of an a cappella group, Oy Cappella. And this year I was asked to sit on an advisory board of the performing arts body, Pulse, who brings the diverse music and
dance acts to the university. I've assisted in event management and schmoozed with the likes of Savion Glover and the Alvin Ailey II dance company within the past few months.

Whew! As you can see, I have little spare time all trying to prepare T5 for the summer. But that's my case for liberal arts undergrad education. Even for those directing/acting people out
there, there's something to be said about a well-rounded student who can take that knowledge and apply it to characters on the stage. Well…I'm off to Disney's Hollywood Studios! Hope it
warms up back home!

 

 
thanks jackie for the heads up on the blog invite ;)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Whoa... my first blog! Even to this day, I don't know what why its called 'blogging'. I guess that's why there is wikipedia. So, long blog short...

I'm Aaron LaVigne. I graduated from NKU with a BFA in 2005. My only professional theatre I did in Cincinnati was @ the Know Theatre with Bruffy, in 'tick, tick... BOOM!' ahhh Jonathan Larson; this guy had a message... an amazing message. I was fortunate to come into that show last minute the way I did. What a blast and a great group to work with. I would recommend everyone to work with this theatre if you get the chance. go know!! The show was an awesome experience for me, especially being so young and poor ha!. Here's what I've been up to since leaving Cincy in January '06.

I was pretty naive moving to NYC. I sold my car for my first month's rent. really... i did. It took me a few weeks to get in the groove but got a serving job (of course) and started auditioning. I ended up getting a couple cruise ship offers off the bat. I felt REALLY lucky but it wasn't for me. I ended taking a regional show in Gettysburg, PA. The show was called 'For The Glory'. In a nutshell it was a re'worked version of Frank Wildhorn's 'The Civil War'. It was such a great time! A lot of the original B'way cast was involved so there was a plethora of talent to surround myself with. The writers were there, and ended up giving me 'tell my father solo. I even worked with a couple of CCM guys who had just graduated that spring who I'm still good friends with. overall good times and good friends made.

I jumped on the RENT tour right after that; literally 2 days later. It was pretty crazy. I was the Mark/Roger swing. I'm not gonna lie... being a swing was tough and, at times, sucked. I'll admit I didn't know what to expect besides the amount of work I would need to keep up on. So I got a storage bin, rehearsed, flew to Florida, and opened the show with the new cast. I learned even more about Jonathan Larson during this whole process. It was special thing to have come from doing tick tick boom and to now learn everything else about his life. ie Meeting his parents, seeing the faces of the 'real life' life support group from the show; these AIDS victims were his friends; watching home video of him sing 'Why' from tick boom. It was very moving. and incredibly humbling.

It was amazing to see this country and canada through airports and on a bus. From big cities, to the beautiful northeast, old civil war towns like Savannah, GA, southern cali, and smaller charming towns. Playing the 'nati was one of the highlights as well. I ended up playing Roger for a few shows while at the aronoff. We got one of the penthouse suites at the Garfield and threw a real nice party.... well, more like a few parties. no reason to lie about that ;) Not to mention we (some cast mates and I) decorated the xmas tree at my moms. real nice. I felt the love in cincy. Growing up here, going to LaSalle High School, and then going through the theatre program at NKU brought out so many old friends and family. I felt like a rockstar. It was an amazing homecoming.

I turned down my contract extension for tour.  It was time to be back in NYC (though I did jump back into the show last week in Chicago and will do another week starting March 4... due to injuries). It had been over a year since I left and I wanted to continue the journey. I did a regional production of 'Hair' with my friend Kaitlin Becker from NKU (small world right). Most recently I just finished a production of 'The Thing About Men' as well.

My biggest news at the moment.... I decided I wanted to start writing music to play... like, singer/songwriter indie stuff. I produced and released my first EP 'Breathing Room' while on tour. It was a great way to promote myself while on the road. RENT fans are great about supporting the cast members so I sold my cd on the road and on i- TUNES. blah blah blah.. so

Now I'm in an online music contest where I'm doing REALLY well, like i could win this thing well. I'm ranked in top tier in the popular votes in two categories; Pop and Singer/Songwriter. the webite is www.famecast.com/aaronlavigne - If I win the poplular vote it is a 10k prize! holla! they also fly you to Austin, TX for a showcase with record industry peeps. So far my friends, fans, and family have helped keep me in the top of the charts on there. You just sign up on the site with your email and then you can vote. the more votes, the more of an absolute chance I can win. I would love your support.

I currently have a couple offers I'm trying work out (business wise and whatnot). I'm just waiting to see if those pan well. well, those might be in the next blog! so... that's it for now... My first "blog". what an ugly word - blawwwwg. I feel like a nerd but anyway, GO NATI! Support local theatre! I know there's an abundance of talent and art out there. I see it everyday around me no matter where I am!

Peace out and Who Dey

a-ron

_________________________________________________________________
Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging. You IM, we give.
http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join

 
Reading reviews is one of the most horrific experiences imaginable. No joke, it is. Actors, Designers, Stage Managers, and Directors spend months crafting, shaping, and sculpting a play until they have the culmination of all the pieces. This culmination is like sending your child off to college. You’re proud, hopeful, and all you want is to insure your child does well.

But you can’t guarantee success. Your child has a mind of it’s own. Taking on new dimensions while playing in the outside world - transforming and morphing with the world that interacts with it. ‘Parking’ somewhere after the prom.

Exactly like a play.

Pieces play differently in front of your first audience. Everything you’ve learned becomes slightly different. That ‘loose bag of sameness’ is a little bit looser than usual.

Not a bad thing, and you can say this without any type of judgment; it’s just how it is.

Let’s move to the point of this diatribe, shall we?

Red Light Winter, playing at Know Theatre, opened this past weekend and played on two separate evenings, to two sold-out audiences, causing two completely different performances, and two utterly contrasting critical reactions.

Not only did this happen in the media, which we’ll break that reaction down in just a moment, but my friends fell onto two sides of the coin as well. These conflicting reactions are exciting and fascinating. Any live theatrical event is an audience member’s unique experience - an experience unique unto them, and to no one else that witnessed the same event.

In some sense, it’s like a painting hanging in a museum. Every patron views the same painting, some are moved to tears over it, others disgusted, and some indifferent. Only when a painter paints their last stroke the painting is finished. An actor or director never enjoys the same moment of finality. In theater your final ‘painting’ is constantly transmuting and in turn, so do the reactions.

But all of that is neither here nor there. Again, it’s not a bad thing; it’s just how it is.

After Saturday nights performance we went out to celebrate at Milton’s. A small group went, the cast, Chris Guthrie, Rachel Shields, Adrienne Clark, and Sarah Stephens. As with most after hour drinking binges involving theater people, you inevitably start talking shop.

For some in our group the play had, more or less, been confusing. They didn’t understand the characters motivations behind their actions or the structure or Rapp’s play or the lack of finite resolution. For them, the play was a two-year-old child wildly acting out – put him in the corner!

Chris Guthrie, who directed Gompers, by Adam Rapp, at Know Theatre last year broke it down nicely. Essentially, Rapp doesn’t write the story with the bow on top. It’s everything but a nice package. His plays contain a beautiful ambiguity, where characters aren’t who you fantasize they are or should be, where they disappoint you, where the structure breaks itself apart, and the words hold a tragic pedestrian poetry that flippantly plays with the audience.

Half this bar crowd loved it and the other half was lost. At least it had us talking.

This reaction was echoed in the press. There are two reviews out for Red Light Winter, one in City Beat, and the other in The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Read them for the sheer joy of there differences.

Here are the links:

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880211007

http://citybeat.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A143936

These two reactions are both equally valid. If anything there both spot-on, depending on which side of the coin you find yourself.

Two things worth mentioning however, is that in both reviews, it was not mentioned that Red Light Winter was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize back in 2006.

So…I’ll say this…and then stop myself before this becomes an egomaniacal rant.

This, ‘overlong, de-constructionist theatrical exercise,’ might be aiming at something a little bit more significant than what it offers on the surface. Just a guess, but I don’t think the Pulitzer Prize committee selects works based on popularity.

As for the ‘glacial’ staging, perhaps I’m the only one who views it in this manner, but don’t you find glaciers god-like, awe inspiring, and magnificent? With global warming glaciers are moving pretty fast these days. I mean glaciers covered/ruled the world twice and forever changed the surface of the earth as we know it. Again, I think this harkens back to what you see on the surface, i.e. a slow moving glacier, and what kind of destruction it’s causing below, i.e. enormous valleys like black holes scarring our planets very existence, or a characters existence for that matter.

On second thought, the glacier analogy is pretty spot-on for this production. It’s all a matter of interpretation. Somehow, I think I just proved my own point about interpretation, but that is also left up to interpretation, so who knows?

Oh, this is all painfully close to a rant. I can only spiral wildly out of control from here.

I’m smacking my hands with a ruler right now.

Come see Red Light Winter, and hey, post your own feedback. You can comment on this blog entry, or submit a User Review. Whatever floats your glacier – I mean boat.

Until next time, good night and good luck!

- Anthony Darnell

 
Hello everyone, this is Anthony Darnell, writing to you from behind my blaringly bright laptop computer screen, underneath my ‘Red Light’ tasseled lamp, atop a stool, at my desk at Know Theatre of Cincinnati.

Just taking some time to relax for a minute, reflect, and try to forget all about this hectic Tech week I’m caught up in, and my impending opening this Friday Feb. 8th of Red Light Winter.

Why is it hectic you may ask?

There’s a bit of a bug blowing about this town – I’m calling it the ‘8 Day Flu,’ but I can’t tell you if that’s correct or not. Whatever it is, it ain’t Pleasant. And I truly mean that with a capital P. Or rather an entirely capitalized UN-PLEASANT.

It all began when Anne Marie Carrol, playing Christina in Red Light Winter contracted this plague, and since both Vandit Bhatt (playing Matt) and I make-out vigorously with her, we were more than likely going to get it.

Vandit came down with it next, except he had some weird puking version. Sorry bud, the facts are the facts.

We shortened rehearsal and sent people home. No big deal at all.

I didn’t have a touch of it.

Then like a freight train rolling down a hill, echoing across a peaceful valley, I was hit. It’s been echoing about my body ever since and it won’t go away.

My fever’s gone, but I have this god-awful cough that sounds like a dying polar bear screaming for medicine or euthanasia.

What makes matters worse, is that we are smoking profusely in this production. I think I go through half a pack of cigarettes in the course of 2 hours. And I pass around this absurdly large; I’m talking 4 inches long, joint. Apparently, that’s what they sell/smoke in Amsterdam.

My lungs love it. My polar bear is growing angrier.

Other than this dreadful disease, this process has been a blast and a huge learning experience.

I’m playing Davis, a hotshot, no-it-all sleazebag (yet a funny hotshot, no-it-all sleazebag). Not exactly my usual casting. I’d say I’m definitely cast out of type.

k. Jenny Jones says she loves it and thinks it’s perfect. Others are little shocked. We’ll see how it goes.

Rapp say’s you have to have, ‘an unsentimental fearlessness about being a bastard.’ Easier said than done. It’s hard to kill your conscience, but that’s what I’m trying to do. Davis is teaching me a lot about myself, how I view other people, and how I can stand up for myself more in my daily life.

All right, admittedly, I’ve taken the standing up for myself a little too far in the past month, but, uh, I learned from it. Don’t worry I haven’t gotten into fights or anything, but perhaps I’ve said some things that were better left unsaid.

Let me tell you my girlfriend loves it.

Red Light Winter opens this Friday Feb. 8 @ 8 PM (we run through March 2).

Come down and see it.

It really is one of the best play’s I’ve ever read. Since I read it, I wanted to do it. One of the most layered and complex plays I’ve ever delved into. And three of the most layered characters I’ve ever encountered.

If this were Shrek, we’d say they were layered like onions – sweet and foul all at the same time. Or does he say he’s layered like a cake? What does, uh, that Donkey say again?

Oh, don’t miss our trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U9dqE5ZX0g

Till next time, good night and good luck.

 
Well, my precious time in NYC has ended, and I am now back to the grind at New Stage, building showers for our current production of Take Me Out (I never thought I would ever be so involved in plumbing!). Anyway, here is my bittersweet recaps for my final shows.

 
Hola! My time in NYC is rapidly coming to a close, and because of an intense schedule of performances and research, it's been difficult to get to the internet cafe to update y'uns on my travels. So I'll just get down and dirty with 3 quick show recaps, with more to come soon.

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE
music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine
directed by Sam Buntrock
featuring Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell
Studio 54

As I approached seeing the new multimedia revival of Sunday in the Park, to quote Mr. S., I was quite "excited and scared." Since I directed the piece several years ago at New Stage with a similar production concept and a production that was very personal, seeing this revival was a bit like going to watch your child who has been adopted by someone else perform material personal to you.

Suffice it to say, the experience lacked that transcendant feeling that so many artists have gotten from this piece, which we treat a bit like attending church. Visually, the production looked sensational, with a stunning forced perspective set, award-worthy lighting and projections sumptuously rendered (just guess how jealous I was seeing real money and a team of designer's culmination of a similar vision to mine!), although at times the specific figures projected (the dogs, the solider) seemed a bit too SIMlike rather than Seuratesque.

The performances and the staging were a different matter. Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell have traveled with this production from across the pond in London, where it was a major hit. However, the British sensiblity has infected the entire production with...well, dullness. For me, Sunday is about tension, sexual and otherwise, which never seemed to appear onstage. While Evans and Russell at least had a relationship and comfortability on stage with each other, they didn't have the inner life to truly bring the music and words of this incredible masterpiece to life.

The Americans that rounded out the cast have seemed to be directed to be as dull and uninnovative as possible. Truly talented performers all, they seem to have been encouraged to only make warmed-over attempts at characterizations similar to the original production, preserved like the 10 Commandments for all eternity on film for every future production to be measured up against. And director Sam Buntrock's staging lacks build and tension, instead making the piece a pastoral, drafty affair.

You may gather that I feel that this production was...well, bad. That's not it. It's a very reverent, visually stunning revival. But it lacks life and power, and that hurts just as much.

SPEECH & DEBATE
by Stephen Karam
directed by Jason Moore
featuring Sarah Steele and Gideon Glick
Roundabout Underground

The Roundabout Theatre Company has a new play developmental initiative, and have opened a new underground 62 seat black box theatre for the development and presentation of new plays. This teeny but swanky theatre with about 10 foot high ceilings, opened this fall with Speech & Debate, which has extended it's run several times due to ticket demand.

The play is a fantastic gem of current high school life, written by a 20 something playwright who clearly has a papable knowledge of the innerworkings of high school dorkdom. Directed with a daringly so-almost-affected-but-true acting style by Jason Moore (Avenue Q) with creative use of chalkboard projections, this comedy of getting back at the man while struggling epically with your own identity is both honest and hysterical. It's closing on February 24th, and well worth the cheap ticket price ($20 bucks!)

SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND
music by Mark Mulachy, libretto by Ben Katchor
directed by Bob McGrath
featuring Peter Friedman and Bobby Steggert
Vineyard Theatre

Well, it was bound to happen. I caught an early preview of a new multimedia musical on Sunday, and it was the first truly, banally bad production of the trip. The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, or the Friends of Doctor Rushower is the newest musical by cartoonist Ben Katchor, whose work has appeared in several print publications, including the New Yorker.

The show features a sung through score composed by Mark Mulachy, a folkish rockish musician who's single known credit to me was writing the theme song from Nickelodeon's Pete & Pete. His idea of composition is to a make a single musical figure for one measure and repeat it endlessly with repetitive, non-insightful lyrics Katchor sung over it.

This two hour musical verges on absurdism, and a plot so inane and (deliberately) inconsequential that it is neither affecting nor amusing. Katchor's cartoons are projected througout the entire show as the setting, and frankly aren't amusing nor interesting.

Oy. The poor performers.

 
Salutations from a 42nd Street internet cafe, 'Natians!  My NY theatre binge is continuing, and I'm quite amazed that similar themes keep cropping up in the work that I'm seeing, no matter how disparate the genres and styles.  Case in point:


NEXT TO NORMAL
music by Tom Kitt, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey
directed by Michael Greif
featuring Alice Ripley and Brian D'Arcy James
Second Stage Theatre

On Wednesday night, I caught my first musical of my trip, Next To Normal, currently in it's first full week of previews at Second Stage Theatre, an incredible Off-Broadway institution, who most recently developed and transferred the Broadway hit The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Next To Normal has been in development for several years by it's authors, Tom Kitt (whose music was heard on Broadway in High Fidelity: The Musical for a whopping 13 performances) and Brian Yorkey (who I very briefly got to work with while at NYU).  Originally titled Feeling Electric, the show had a developmental run at the New York Musical Festival in 2005, and has been rewritten and further developed by director Michael Greif (Rent, Grey Gardens).  That's a long time for development, but for a brand new original musical not adapted from prior source material (a MAJOR anomaly) and incredibly difficult subject matter, smart brains and major time spent seem to be the perscription for success.

In a nutshell, Normal is a rock musical about depression, psychotherapy, loss, overmedication, psychotherapy, and suburbia.  More importantly, it's about the desperate struggle to find happiness when your brain refuses to let go from a trauma, regardless of how much time passes.  Sounds like a real upper, right?  But with Tom Kitt's haunting and rocking score and Brian Yorkey's honest, fresh, funny and surprising writing, this is a musical that draws back the curtain to a world we know but rarely see onstage, much in the way American Beauty did several years ago.

I won't be too specific about the piece, since the production is in early previews, and changes are happening every day.  But suffice it to say, an incredible cast of 6, especially Brian D'Arcy James (who eerily looked, acted, and sang almost exactly like Cincinnati's Charlie Clark) and newcomer Aaron Tveit in a fearless and vocally searing performance, tells this heartbreaking and electrifying story in a thrilling way.  The production is aided by a truly exceptional design, and Mary Mitchell-Campbell (of Playhouse's Company) brings the score thrillingly to life with her terrific band.

There are some pretty big structural problems in the last half an hour of the piece, but from what I understand, it's because of cuts and changes from the show's much more emotionally affecting ending in it's NYMF incarnation.  I sincerly hope the powers at be make the changes/reinstatements necessary to fix the show before opening, because, as Richard Oberacker (who happened to be at the performance I attended) agreed, this could be the new musical Broadway has been craving.

HAPPY DAYS
by Samuel Beckett
directed by Deborah Warner
featuring Fiona Shaw
at the Brooklyn Academy of Music

After an acclaimed run at the National Theatre in London, Fiona Shaw's lauded performance in Samuel Beckett's two-handed classic Happy Days has travelled to BAM, and the New York cognocenti are shlepping out in the cold to catch her blazing performance (on Thursday's performance, I spotted Peter Sarsgaard, Maggie Gyllenhall, and Isaac Mizrahi, among others).

When I was a poor college student at NYU, I never made it out to BAM, which constantly programs trans-Atlantic tours by exceptional artists, from London and elsewhere.  The BAM Harvey Theatre is an arrestingly crumbling house, with the lobby underneath the stage, and the chipping and cracking walls haven't seen a coat of paint in ages.  The inside of the theatre feels literally like ancient ruins, and this makes Tom Pyle's extraordinary set feel like an extension of the theatre. 

A massive mountain of rock and rubble cover the entire space, which has been stripped of any and all dressings, is bathed in an incredible lighting design of complete white light.  The thrilling preshow sequence, featuring a superbly apocalyptic sound score, features a new version of "curtain raising" that leaves the audience breathless.

Ms. Shaw, who has collaborated many times with director Deborah Warner in galvanizing productions, does not disappoint in the stamina-testing role of Winnie.  Stuck and sinking in her hole in a mountain, she is a almost scarily optomistic surviver, constantly speaking because she must. 

For a woman stuck in a whole, this a large, full, theatrical performance.  Winnie does about everything but dance (and almost does with her arms), performing for her audience in her head, intentionally mugging and showing off because that's all she can do.  At times, the performance seemed a tad too fast-paced for us to allow the pauses in Beckett's dialogue to break through to the humanity of the moment, but regardless, Shaw's performance was worth the hype.

 

 
Recap #1: When the Audience is a part of the show...or IS the show...