Latest news with #Gertrude
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Seattle's JP Patches clown statue vandalized in Fremont, fans hope to make repairs
The Brief After the beloved J.P. Patches statue was recently vandalized in Fremont, the Seattle community is rallying for repairs. Someone inked out J.P. Patches and his sidekick Gertrude in black paint, discoloring the facial features that made the characters come to life. SEATTLE - Community leaders in Fremont are hoping to repair the statue of Seattle's most famous clown after it was defaced by a vandal within the past few weeks. J.P. Patches was the star of a long-running show from 1958-1981, with many members of the community appearing on the program over the years. The statue was unveiled in 2008 with a street later named after the iconic clown. The picture below shows what the statue used to look like before and after the vandalism. What they're saying "I am a long-time Seattleite and I know who J.P. Patches is and Gertrude," said superfan Suzie Burke, a J.P. Patches statue supporter. Burke says during his three decades on TV, J.P. Patches worked to make people happy. But, things took a sad turn after the statue honoring J.P. Patches and his sidekick, Gertrude, was vandalized with black paint. Someone inked out the facial features that made the characters come to life. "J.P. Patches was our clown," she said, pictured below looking at the damage. "We have to fix it!," said Burke, pointing to the statue. "His face is supposed to be white, with the red lips and the red nose." Fans of the late clown and the statue say the person who was responsible for defacing the statue wasn't just clowning around, as the vandalism disrespects the memory of both the clown and the man behind him, Chris Wedes. "J.P. Patches is a Seattle icon. Any kid that grew up from the 60s and 70s grew up watching JP Patches," said Curt Hanks, webmeister of After Chris passed away in 2012, FOX 13 interviewed his co-star Bob Newman during a 2013 street-naming celebration in his honor. "We could do crazy dumb stuff, you know, and people loved it," said Newman. "They just loved to be talked to, you know, and we just had a great time. As for who is responsible for the damage, that's unclear. For now, Hanks with says "Patches Pals," as fans are called, will likely rally to make repairs. A restoration fund for the statue is now live on the J.P. Patches website. "I raised funds for the last restoration of the statue about three years ago, and we raised funds for these pavers at the base of the statue," said Hanks. "We take that pretty seriously, even when it's a clown," said Ryan Reiter, managing director for the Fremont Sunday Market, in reference to the vandalism. Reiter is also hoping to host a parade in Fremont to raise money for the cause. "We've just been spit-balling. We want to find a way to help fix J.P. Patches," said Reiter. He's hoping to host that parade at the Fremont Sunday Market location. He said he could host the event as early as May 25. He plans to make an announcement on social media soon. FOX 13 reached out to Seattle Police to see if officers are investigating the vandalism incident, and we are waiting to hear back. The Source Information in this story came from the J.P. Patches website and original FOX 13 Seattle reporting and interviews. Social media says Seattle ports are empty — but data shows growth Irish woman returning from visiting sick father detained at Tacoma ICE facility 'Violated, degraded, dehumanized': Ex-Seattle police official Jamie Tompkins demands $3M Idaho judge slams Bryan Kohberger's 'hollow' attempt to dodge death penalty First confirmed Pacific Northwest sighting of invasive Chinese mitten crab WA pilot program offers free walk-on ferry rides to San Juan Islands To get the best local news, weather and sports in Seattle for free, sign up for the daily FOX Seattle Newsletter. Download the free FOX LOCAL app for mobile in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for live Seattle news, top stories, weather updates and more local and national news.
New York Times
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Rising Star Rides the Stormy Seas in a Maritime ‘Hamlet'
In the Royal Shakespeare Company's new 'Hamlet,' the Danish royal court is all at sea — quite literally. The set is a ship's deck that tilts and creaks ominously while a screen plays eerily textured footage of a roiling ocean. At several points, the action pauses and an ensemble of actors in Edwardian dress scatters around the deck in panic, wearing Titanic-style life vests that foreshadow the play's catastrophic climax. It is a risky move to evoke a sinking ship: If the play falls short, the wisecracks practically write themselves. But this 'Hamlet' — directed by Rupert Goold and running at the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford-upon-Avon through March 29 — proves seaworthy, thanks in large part to Luke Thallon's psychologically absorbing turn as the embattled prince. Already grieving for his father and sickened by the recent remarriage of his mother, Queen Gertrude (Nancy Carroll) to his uncle Claudius (Jared Harris), Hamlet learns that Claudius had in fact murdered his father, and he is therefore duty bound to exact revenge. This is always a lot for anyone to take in, and Thallon — a rising star with recent stage credits in 'Patriots' and 'Leopoldstadt' — portrays Hamlet's anguish with a vulnerable, semi-abstracted candor. He delivers his lines in a pensive, haltingly conversational rhythm, as though feeling his way into them; we get the sense of a man continually processing his incredulity at the baroque predicament in which he finds himself. Thallon also uses his body to good effect in a lithe, controlled display of nervous physicality. He is rag-doll-like, dynamic in his despondency. Now and then, he enlists the audience for moral support, throwing us a wry, self-pitying smirk, or striking ironically hammy poses. Carroll's Gertrude has a brittle standoffishness consistent with repressed shame, complementing Harris's cagey Claudius. Anton Lesser's incantatory declamations as the father's ghost are genuinely spine-tingling, and Elliot Levey is endearingly funny as the sycophantic councilor Polonius, whose desperate desire to ingratiate himself to the royal household inadvertently results in the tragic demise of his daughter, Ophelia (Nia Towle). With his velvet dinner jacket, adenoidal intonations and shameless cynicism — at one point he shows off Ophelia like a calf brought to market — he is part smarmy salesman, part 1970s light entertainer. The pivotal 'Mousetrap' scene — in which Hamlet has a troupe of actors re-enact his father's murder, so he can gauge Claudius's reaction and confirm his guilt — is a crisply choreographed mime accompanied by creepily portentous singing. There was a ripple of audience laugher during the buildup, when a member of the troupe wearing a top hat performed elaborate stretches as though limbering up for a marathon. Small touches like this keep the show ticking along, and the two-and-a-half-hour run time flies by. Not everything works, however. The presence of a large digital clock, which buzzes into life to indicate that the drama is unfolding within a compressed time frame, adds little. And the overt nod to the sinking of the Titanic feels contrived, since there is little obvious connection between the 1912 maritime disaster and the political intrigues of 17th-century Denmark. The tenuousness of the metaphor undermines its symbolic force. The maritime setting would have worked equally well without it, evoking a more elliptical sense of dread. But whatever you thinks of the Titanic conceit, it is relatively unobtrusive and it doesn't impinge on the story. The set, by Es Devlin, is gorgeous, and also has practical benefits. When the rear of the deck pitches upward as the ship begins to sink, the stage becomes a ramp, bringing gravity into play. In the gravedigger scene, the skull of the jester Yorick isn't handed to Hamlet but rolled down to him. And during the famously bloody denouement — when all but one of the remaining characters are killed, in a matter of minutes — the bodies of Gertrude, Laertes and Claudius tumble down the deck and out of sight, one by one, leaving only the dying Hamlet, cradled by his friend Horatio. It is an impressively clutter-free death spree, which ensures the tragic hero has our full attention in the play's final moments. This is as it should be, given the virtuosic esprit of Thallon's performance. Blending affable sincerity with restless, self-therapizing neediness, his is a fitting Hamlet for our anxious age. A London transfer surely awaits.
