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New York Times
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Circus Comes to Williamstown, With Celebrities and Beefcake
You weren't likely to miss Jeremy O. Harris on Sunday in the lobby of the '62 Center for Theater & Dance. At 6-foot-5, plus hair, he stood a head or more above the babble of the crowd. Dressed as always to delight, this time in bright striped pants and a faux-needlepoint floral top, he looked like a maypole, people swirling around him. Or maybe he was more of a lightning rod; as the creative director for this year's Williamstown Theater Festival, his brief was to bring the buzz to an institution that needed it, without burning the place down. But having spent three days racing from one event he had programmed to another, sometimes with barely a half-hour to catch a bite in between, I began to think of Harris, the 'Slave Play' playwright and walking Rolodex, as something else, too: a ringmaster, half visionary, half hokum. Come see the what-are-they-doing-here stars! (Pamela Anderson in 'Camino Real'? Why not?) Dare to experience the melodrama on ice! (Change out of those open-toe shoes, missy!) Wonder at the endless parades of beefcake! (Harris's play 'Spirit of the People,' one of the centerpiece events, might well have been called 'Men in Thongs.') In short, the long-hallowed, lately-harrowed festival is nothing this year if not a circus. Circuses can be fun if you bring few expectations. I tried to lower mine, but it was difficult, given the more traditional theatrical pleasures I'd experienced during visits here over the course of 45 summers. (In 1980, less pleasurably, I was a 'general assistant,' staying up all night slinging waffles and getting yelled at.) More recently, complaints of unfair treatment, racial discrimination and unsafe working conditions had made the festival's operating model untenable, eventually leading to this year's mad experimentation. Harris himself seemed to acknowledge the madness, telling my colleague Michael Paulson that the season, loosely based on European models and focused on the world of Tennessee Williams, might produce 'jewels' from 'raw, weird things' or might be 'a colossal failure.' He was right. On both counts. I don't want to ding an idea still aborning, and it's nice that he's pitched a very big tent. But 'raw' is putting it mildly. Much of what I saw during the first of the festival's three public weekends was under-rehearsed or overthought. Some of it was merely baffling. The Williams connections sometimes seemed stretched to the vanishing point and other times so tightly wound as to suggest parody. Ticketing, including weekend passes for preset 'itineraries,' was bizarrely complicated, with seven core events plus installations, pop-ups and late-night hangs. Few of them started on time, and fewer ended that way. But chaos is not itself failure, and certainly it did not prevent some of the promised jewels from shining. Top among them was Samuel Barber's 'Vanessa,' presented at the festival in a version vastly reduced from the one audiences saw at its Metropolitan Opera premiere in 1958. Some small roles along with the entire chorus were cut, and the original's large orchestra became a seven-player band. It now tells its story — about a woman who has barely moved for 20 years, hoping to remain beautiful for the return of her lover — in just 100 enthralling minutes. transcript [MUSIC] Unlike many abridged operas, this one lost little in being concentrated, partly because Gian Carlo Menotti's intense, almost neurotic libretto profits, like a wailing babe, from tight swaddling. At Williamstown, the tight swaddling came in the form of R.B. Schlather's chic, disciplined, minimalist production, using shadows cast on a long white wall to create a devastating X-ray of the story. A top-notch cast a few feet from my face wailed thrillingly. Did this have anything to do with Williams? You could perhaps connect the gothic aspects of 'Vanessa' to the playwright's hothouse style, and certainly Vanessa herself belongs in the pantheon of floridly suffering straight women like Blanche DuBois and Alexandra Del Lago created and flayed by gay authors. I got to see more of those women back at the Center for Drama & Dance, where three plays were running in repertory. In Harris's 'Spirit of the People,' the woman was Genevieve, a brittle yet entitled American in Mexico. Played by Amber Heard in her professional stage debut, she becomes a mezcal impresario and a kind of death doula to a circle of toxic queer tourists in skimpy beachwear. I can't grade the play itself — critics were asked not to review it — but I can give it five out of five beefcake stars, and five as well for Williams relevance. Indeed, 'Spirit of the People' (a pun, in part, on the mezcal) is in some ways a Williams collage, drawing heavily on all his plays — Heard ends up on a hot tin roof — but especially 'Camino Real,' a surrealistic hodgepodge from 1953. The festival's big, handsome production of that experimental work, directed by Dustin Wills, did not alas justify its revival, except as an object of historical interest for Williams completists. Also, admittedly, for beefcake completists: In the central role of Kilroy, Nicholas Alexander Chavez channeled Marlon Brando in a white T-shirt about 10 sizes too small and distressed to the point of transparency. I'm hardly objecting to sexy men — or women, for that matter. (Anderson, as the tragic if often inaudible Camille figure, was a knockout in strapless black velvet.) But when buried sexuality is unburied, other considerations get shoved aside. That was the case with Williams's 'Not About Nightingales,' a 1938 drama not produced in his lifetime — with good cause in two senses. (It's an impassioned but sloppy cry for prison reform.) In exploring the familiar trope of jailhouse homoeroticism even where Williams took care to suppress it, Robert O'Hara's otherwise sturdy production did the playwright's plea no favors. It's disappointing that the three big plays at the Center for Theater & Dance were the new offerings least reminiscent of the old festival's excellence, despite its intention to honor a connection to Williams going back to 1956. But you can't really honor what you don't quite trust. The names of the sandwiches at Pappa Charlie's Deli on Water Street, where playgoers dashed for quick bites between shows, may still honor beloved Williamstown stars — the Blythe Danner (tuna and sprouts); the Olympia Dukakis (feta and avocado) — but the archival production photos that used to line the halls of the main stage were gone. If the past seemed to require re-education or even redaction, perhaps that's why the three shows at the so-called Annex, four miles east on Route 2, felt freer and more satisfying than the ones in Williamstown proper. The Annex has no theatrical history, having until recently been a Rent-A-Center and before that a Price Chopper. Along with 'Vanessa,' the Annex offered two fine shows. On Friday afternoon, 'The Things Around Us,' an hourlong solo by the droll multi-instrumentalist Ahamefule J. Oluo, was a promising start to the weekend, exploring through melancholy stories interspersed with hypnotic music the interpenetration of opposites: past and future, nothing and everything, order and chaos. And then, on Sunday morning, came the joyful bookend: 'Many Happy Returns,' a dance piece by Monica Bill Barnes and Robbie Saenz de Viteri. Sprightly, humorous, with a motif of finger snaps to go with oldies like 'Take Good Care of My Baby,' it told as lightly as possible the tale of four inseparable high school friends now separated except in memory. transcript [MUSIC] None of the Annex shows, it bears noting, were plays, and all were jobbed in. 'Vanessa' was created for the festival by the New York City-based Heartbeat Opera; 'The Things Around Us' has been on tour for a while; 'Many Happy Returns' ran for a few weeks in January at Playwrights Horizons. Also not a play was the seventh core offering, the one on ice. At the Peter W. Foote Vietnam Veterans Skating Rink, home of the North Berkshire Youth Hockey Black Bears, five talented skaters performed Will Davis's 'The Gig,' a diverting if impenetrable riff on a late Williams novel called 'Moise and the World of Reason.' As the skaters swirled and swooshed in pretty patterns and garish costumes, never enacting the story literally but suggesting a circle of queer friends and lovers, the audience listened on headphones to selections from the novel while trying to stay warm. That one of the characters in the source material is in fact a skater seemed a very thin thread to hang the concept on. But the ideas binding the other offerings were hardly more robust. That Williams celebrated 'the outcast and derelict and the desperate' (as he wrote in a letter quoted in the festival program) is a lovely notion, but not much of an organizing principle. It would exclude almost nothing ever written, sung, danced or skated. Perhaps the more salient connection was Harris; it seemed that his imagination was the main thing being celebrated and the only glue holding the weekend together. (He narrated 'The Gig'; his niece and nephew performed in 'Camino Real.') Fair enough; Nikos Psacharopoulos, a festival founder, ran the place for decades as a cult of personality despite having one of the worst personalities I've ever encountered. Harris at least is charming. And if his primary goal was to use his cultural currency to serve artists while secondarily challenging audiences who don't mind spending money on duds in the hope of the occasional jewel, perhaps he succeeded. The big tent of creativity he designed was mostly sideshows, but it wasn't entirely empty.
BBC News
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Zebfest returns to Hull as part of Healthy Holidays programme
A free festival for young people will return to Hull for its third will feature live music, a silent disco, pizza-making and a clothes swap, as well as a variety of food aged 11 to 16 will be able to attend the event, which takes place later in Zebedee's Yard from 14:30 until 18:30 Linda Tock said the festival always had a brilliant atmosphere and described it as a "great way for young people to start summer". Tock added: "It really is a taste of festival fun they can enjoy without parents or younger children."The event is part of the city's Healthy Holidays programme, funded by the Department for Education, which provides free activities throughout the the activities are sculpture murals, creative hair tutorials, futsal and karting sessions. Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices
News.com.au
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
‘Just have a beer': Unexpected sight at Tomorrowland
Who said you need to skip leg day when at a festival? Popular electronic dance festival, Tomorrowland, is going viral – not just for having pulled off the unthinkable after its Mainstage caught fire – but for having a full-blown gym on the grounds in Boom, Belgium. It's definitely not something you'd expect to find at a festival but various clips show partygoers embracing the 'chill out area', equipped with free weights and various machines. 'Yes, there's a gym at Tomorrowland,' one Instagram video read as it showed guys with their shirts off and girls in their activewear pumping some iron. 'From early morning workouts to pre-set pump-ups, the Tomorrowland fitness zone proves the festival life is about balance too,' the caption continued. It was described as the place 'where ravers train before the party begins'. Unsurprisingly, many were quick to jump into the comment section to weigh in on the surprise set-up. 'Just get a beer and enjoy mate! It's only 3 days for duck sake!' one user joked. 'Do you pay for a ticket for tomorrow to go train? No, I'm kidding! Drink a cold beer and enjoy the music. You won't lose muscle in 3 days, for God's sake,' another wrote. A third person joked: 'How was the festival? It was good I was at the gym …' Another clip shows the gym packed as a strength class takes place. 'WTF,' one person simply wrote, while others were impressed with the partygoers' energy. 'Strength training first, then cardio on the dance floor!' another added. According to the Tomorrowland website, the area focuses on 'recharging your body by sports, relaxing and enjoying more healthy food and drinks in a chill and easygoing environment'. They also hold yoga classes, one-on-one boxing work all to 'get your endorphins flowing'. 'Hit the gym on your own or join one of many group classes. Even a boxing ring is available!' 'The recovery area is entirely free and the instructors here will safely introduce you to the world of fitness.' Tomorrowland 2025 had a rocky start to the festival after its Mainstage caught fire just a few days out from opening last week. Wild footage showed its magical 'Orbyz Mainstage' up in flames. Organisers said it was a 'race against time' to build a substitute stage with the likes of Meduza, Axwell and Vini Vici all due to perform – but they did it. A photo posted to their official Instagram account on July 19 showed the new Mainstage and while very different to the usual elaborate design – it was quickly welcomed and in some cases more preferred by fans. 'Honestly this looks much better and you know why? people are closer to the DJ. It will be more about dancing than posting videos since a long time ago. I hope people there will enjoy it!' one follower wrote. According to local news outlet, HLN, stage parts from the European leg of Metallica's current M72 World Tour stored in Austria were airlifted to the site to ensure the Mainstage proceedings could go ahead as planned. One of this year's headlining acts, Martin Garrix, took to Instagram to thank the metal heavyweights, just hours before he took to the stage. 'I cannot believe I'm actually typing this … but my set at Tomorrowland is still happening,' the post reads. 'Massive love and a big shoutout to the incredible @tomorrowland team for pulling off miracles — and to @Metallica for coming through with the new stage parts.' It's currently still unclear what caused the fire, but a local firefighter, François van den Eynde, told reporters the blaze 'spread very quickly,' likely because of the 'materials used' to build the stage, according to Rolling Stones.
The Guardian
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Can Burning Man survive the financial desert - and keep its soul intact?
Burning Man has faced its share of challenges in recent years. There were the Covid years when organizers cancelled the Nevada festival entirely, the sweltering record temperatures of 2022, and mud created by heavy rains in 2023 that trapped tens of thousands of attendees on the playa. Then last year, Burning Man tickets failed to sell out as they had every year since 2011. It was an indicator of a deep trouble for the week-long desert celebration in the form of a $20m revenue shortfall that meant 'everything is now at risk', Marian Goodell, the Burning Man Project CEO, wrote last fall. Burning Man has been trying to find its financial footing and figure out how to ensure the longevity of a festival that has become an institution, Goodell told Bloomberg in an interview this week, a month ahead of this year's festivities. The festival must succeed as a business, she told the outlet, while adding: 'I am loath to look at Burning Man as a product, where the goal is to sell as much of the product as possible.' Burning Man, which started in 1986 on a San Francisco beach, is held each year in Nevada's remote Black Rock desert, where as many as 73,000 people travel to partake in the revelry and performance art. But over the years it has increasingly become a playground for the wealthy and Silicon Valley elite, such as Elon Musk. Meanwhile, rising ticket prices have coincided with a decrease in attendees making less than $50,000, Bloomberg reported. Wealthy attendees, the outlet noted, have provided a 'lifeline' to Burning Man over the years, with five people responsible for two-thirds of the $60m the festival has raised since 2014. Despite its explosive popularity over the years, in 2024 Burning Man fell short of its fundraising goals and saw a reduction in ticket sales. The organization does not have corporate sponsorships to support its operations, and the sale of tickets, which cost anywhere from $550 to $3,000, do not alone cover those expenses, Goodell said in her October note. 'Ticket revenue alone does not fund all that Burning Man Project does to bring Burning Man to the world, including the production of Black Rock City, and in fact has not since 2014.' The organization has turned to Burners for support, writing that a monthly contributions of $20 'will help to keep Burning Man programs alive'. While it received millions of dollars in support, it still fell short of its fundraising goal last year. But this year's tickets have so far sold well, according to Bloomberg, allowing organizers 'to keep moving forward.' Last year's decline in ticket sales prompted some outlets to ask whether the festival was past its prime, but Goodell argued in the Reno Gazette Journal in June 'the values that guide the Burning Man creative culture are more relevant today than ever.' 'It's not a partisan project. It's a cultural one. It's creative. And creative culture, especially when rooted in shared values rather than political ideology, is what holds people together when everything else feels like it's falling apart,' she said.
CTV News
21 hours ago
- CTV News
Publication ban on hearing to decide if festival suspect Adam Kai-Ji Lo fit for trial
The man accused of ramming an SUV into a crowd at Vancouver's Lapu Lapu Day festival this year is set to appear in court Wednesday.
