2 posts tagged “review”

I had the amazing opportunity to go to New York for a few days this year and decided to time my vacation with the running of Denise's latest off-broadway production, 'Zanahorias', a bilingual play written by Antonio Zancada and directed by Alfredo Galvan.

The play starts out with two men and a woman, who was sitting on a chair watching them as they played a game. The game seemed like a one-up game and drama begins to unfold as the loser exacts suspicion regarding the fact that he tends to loose every time they play the game, wondering what was going on. The masked woman, Madame of the Sacred Heart, promised the king that the next match shall be the greatest match ever and so the story begins.

The play has quite a few surprising twists and turns in it as time goes out as we watch the mystery of Madame unfold as subtle (and not-so-subtle) forshadowing begins to catch up with its shadow. Hints that were given earlier in the play later made much more sense as the drama, tragedy, melodrama, comedy...piece of fun literature...unfolds.

The play, while a period piece, had a very modern feel to it and even used modern words within context of the discussion. They wittingly focus on intelligence, displaying such humorous (and sadly quite often true in the time period) examples such as the Marquette of "Aaaaah", a wealthy very well-known woman and lady-in-waiting to the Queen, not being able to read very well but the Countess of "Eh", a lower ranking and deemed "easy" right off (what else would you consider the King's concubine) being able to not only read fluently, but speak multiple languages as well.

I don't want to give the whole plot line away, because those of you who are in New York Saturday and Sunday should really stop by the Duke theater on 42nd between 8th and 9th Ave and watch a funny story play out as revenge's story, previously untold.

The cast was really amazing and seemed to be a good group of people. While this was a small cast of six people, each one brought a new and different characterization. Likely the most humorous addition to the play, outside of the main plotline, was the addition of Josefine, a Bulgarian house maiden played by Iva Gocheva, new to off-broadway. Josefine only spoke Bulgarian and would randomly interject during scenes with craziness that no one, but apparently the Countess of Eh!, could understand. The confused faces from the cast as they tried and failed to make out what message she was trying to get across.

Oh! the first King of Puritania, played by Francisco Reyes, was just as humorous always attempting to be clever and have the upper hand on any of his subjects. Francisco's work was very natural and fluent, as was the entire cast.

And as one might expect, the most intriguing character in the show, who seemed to take perverse pleasure in the agony of others, was Madame of the Sacred Heart. Denise delivered a stellar performance playing a wide range of emotions; going in one second from pleased and happy with the outcome of her game to outraged but always quickly trying to figure out where to move her chess piece on the great game of life.

The last three shows this weekend are Spanish performances, which is what the play was originally written in. The actors rehearsed in both English and Spanish at the same time. According to Denise, as she sat down to do the memorization in both languages she found that, due to repetition during rehearsals, she had the entire piece nearly memorized. Francisco mentioned that the production, while the same outcome, feels different in the native language and flows somewhat differently. It'll be an exciting show to go see during the Spanish production in its original form, so you really shouldn't miss out--not with only three performances left!

For more information on 'Zanahorias', please visit their website at "http://www.zanahoriasenbroadway.com/".

Seeing an opportunity for Smallville to reach a larger audience through new viewers who will tune into the show after watching the newest Superman movie, Superman Returns, the creators of Smallville have joined up with the popular “coffee table book” company, DK Books, and KryptonSite’s own Craig Byrne to bring to you “Smallville Visual Guide”.

This paperback book covers quite a bit of ground from Seasons 1-5 and introduces new and interesting ideas that we’ve never even heard of as well as clarifies many controversial topics.

Inside of the 96 page book there are 46 detailed spreads jam-packed with useful information that can serve you well for that afternoon heated debate on your favorite message-board.

As the webmaster for AllisonMackOnline.com, I can attest that the visual guide is especially friendly to the Chloe fan, as it contains two spreads devoted to her and her role in Smallville. The first spread, titled “Chloe Sullivan” takes the reader through her history and purpose on the show and gives important family history. This spread clears up the common misconception regarding ages in which Chloe’s mother left the Sullivan family and tells us that Chloe’s readers for The Torch had at least 1000 subscriptions. That’s quite a lot for a small town!

The second spread for Chloe is titled “City Girl” and features Chloe Sullivan in her element as a Working Woman of Metropolis. It takes the reader through her journey to Metropolis and getting into Met U as well as how she got her job at the Daily Planet working for Editor in Chief Pauline Kahn.

In addition to the two Chloe spreads, Smallville fans can also enjoy pages on Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, and even a surprise return of Pete Ross! The book also dives into the romantic relationships on the show with spreads for Clark and Lana as well as Lex and Lana. It also follows the Luthors in-depth and explains further detail on the complicated relationship formed between Clark and Lex on the day of “The Rescue.”

Even more intriguing than relationships are the in-depth details regarding show plots and sets including the caves, kryptonite and how it affects Clark, Supervillans and much much more.

The book itself contains beautiful graphics and never-before-seen photos.  Almost as attractive as the characters themselves are the wonderful computer generated graphics of maps, rooms, caves, and objects which explain in a great detail concepts that mere two-dimensional photographs could never explain with such clarity and detail.

This is an excellent book to add to any collection and a must-have for any Smallville “Completists” out there because it’s packed full of information and handy tips that make for easy look-up and to-the-point explanations. Owning this book is owning a part of Smallville, a piece of written canon designed to enhance the show itself and clear up or tie-up any loose ends from the previous five seasons.

This book will become available on September 4, 2006 and can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com to ensure accurate and on-time delivery.