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As amnesia strikes, ‘Fuddy’ equals funny By Nancy Van Valkenburg

By Nancy Van Valkenburg (Standard-Examiner staff)

Last Edit: 1 day 10 hours ago (Sep 24 2009 - 10:10pm)

Imagine waking up refreshed and carefree.

Plagued by no wistful regrets, no bad decisions. Free of haunting childhood memories and thoughts of relationships turned sour.

Unable to recall your own name, or fathom where you might be or the identity of the man sitting on your bed.

And wondering if you should trust the stranger’s explanation.

It happens to Claire, the amnesiac in “Fuddy Meers,” David Lindsay-Abaire’s dark farce/mystery opening next Friday at Weber State University.

“In a way, her amnesia is kind of a blessing to her,” said Stephanie Purcell, 21, an Ogden resident who plays the upbeat heroine. “It takes away any doubts she has about herself. She is the most honest character, with herself and others. She’s not hiding anything, at least consciously. She is open to everything that comes to her.”

Besides the man on the bed, who turns out to be husband Richard, people who come into Claire’s world include:
# A foul-mouthed young man, Kenny, who may be her son. next................

Night Sky Grade: C+

By Susan Yankowitz. Directed by Daniella Topol. At the Baruch College Performing Arts Cetner. (CLOSED)

The only consensus in this show's set of reviews is that Jordan Baker-- last seen in New York in Three Tall Women-- is the tops. Beyond that, reviewers detec NEXT...

Theater Review: 'Night Sky'

NEW YORK—Being trapped inside your own head, unable to let anyone know what you're really thinking is what playwright Susan Yankowitz taps into—this deep and universal fear—in her powerful drama "Night Sky."

Anna (Jordan Baker) is a respected astronomer who teaches, publishes, and is always pushing herself to the limit—so much so she sometimes neglects the needs of her family.

Said family consists of teenage daughter Jennifer (Lauren Ashley Carter) and longtime live-in opera singer boyfriend Daniel (Jim Stanek). Anna’s continual prodding is also the reason Daniel's career is finally starting to take off.
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NOW I CANNOT SPEAK. I LOST MY VOICE. I'M SPECHLESS AND REDUNDANT.

Rain might now taste like lemon
But your eyes are still the same
They've still got their demon
And I've still got your semen
In my mind
And in my mouth

You put your finger
And I like it so much....next...

Tate Group Exhibition Explores the Themes of Disruption and Discontinuity within Processes

Anna Barham, Replanted images 2008. Courtesy of the artist. Copyright: the artist.

LONDON.- Stutter, the latest exhibition in Tate Modern’s Level 2 programme, explores the themes of disruption and discontinuity within processes of thought and language. The group show features works by international contemporary artists Sven Augustijnen, Anna Barham, Dominique Petitgand, Michael Riedel, Will Stuart and Michelangelo Pistoletto and includes a wide range of media, ranging from sculpture, work on paper and video, to performance and sound. The exhibition’s title, Stutter, comes from the onomatopoetic word for an interrupted act of speech. Level 2 is Tate Modern’s space for emerging artists, dedicated to experiment and the latest ideas, themes and trends in international contemporary art. Sven Augustijnen’s films Johan and Francois 2001 are intimate portraits of people suffering from aphasia, the loss of the ability to produce or comprehend language. Augustijnen’s skilfully edited documentaries gradually reveal the thoughts and memories of the patients and allow the viewer to access a world that is shaped by the experience of fragmentation and degradation. The centrepiece of Anna Barham’s contribution to Stutter is a sculpture comprised of fluorescent tubes, orchestrated by computer codes. Creating an infinite number of flickering pulses, A Splintered Game 2008 manipulates ideas of geometry, structures and combinations as a way to illustrate and reveal thought processes. The installation is surrounded by seven of Barham’s drawings that show her interest in the potential of words and anagrams to create elaborate forms and to trigger images and narratives in the viewer’s imagination. In a new spatial configuration, Dominique Petitgand presents Someone on the ground 2005-2006, where recordings of words, pauses, breaths and noise merge into layers of voice and sound, structured by break ups and cuts. Played back from various spaces in the gallery, this installation takes place alongside and simultaneous to other works in the exhibition, overarching and setting them in relation, creating tensions between speech and noise, figuration and abstraction. Will Stuart (Will Holder and Stuart Bailey) present one of Michelangelo Pistoletto's Minus Objects from 1966, Structure for talking while standing. They challenge Pistoletto’s artwork through accompanying texts, exploring the use and significance of Pistoletto’s piece within the context of both the exhibition and Will Stuart’s intervention. Michael Riedel presents an entirely new work, which arises out of an array of gaps, elisions and errors. These result from a complex process of editing video footage of film screenings, recorded over a period of many months, into a frenetic trailer lasting just eight minutes. The exhibition is curated by Nicholas Cullinan and Vanessa Desclaux. next.............

Big Man Tries Beckett

IN his dressing room last week John Goodman stood up, emitted a long, blaring foghorn blast and then announced in a loudspeaker voice, “Now docking. ...” He was describing his Act I entrance as Pozzo, his first theatrical role in four years, in the Roundabout Theater Company production of “Waiting for Godot,” which opens April 30 at Studio 54.

Mr. Goodman is a big man — he’s 6 foot 3, and his weight these days hovers around 300 pounds — and in his Pozzo getup he seems even bigger. He wears a derby, boots and a voluminous riding suit with jodhpurs, and when he comes onstage, at the end of a long rope attached to his hapless slave, Lucky (played by John Glover), he does seem a bit like an ocean liner. Vladimir and Estragon (played by Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane) look astonished, and rightly so.

Pozzo is the least sympathetic and in some ways the trickiest character in “Godot.” He cruelly mistreats Lucky, and yet he is as lost and vulnerable as all the others. He is “an insecure gasbag who needs to be listened to and have things done for him,” as Mr. Goodman put it. “He’s like the Macy’s blimp no one wants to look at.” Pozzo spouts a lot of fustian and hot air, and Mr. Goodman said he was still trying to figure out the right voice for it. His Pozzo speaks in a deep, Goodmanesque rumble but with a lordly British accent.

“It’s just a voice I heard in my head,” Mr. Goodman explained, “along with all the other voices there — the barking dogs and the rest. I need to make it more distinctly American, sort of like Bill Buckley. I’m trying to make it more a patrician Yankee voice, but I worry that’s not going to sell. It’s going to sound like a bad English accent. So it’s something I’m still searching for.”

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