Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– I’ve posted a couple of pictures from Woman of the Year (called WOTY by those in the know) in the past but thought I go a touch deeper now.

Woman of the Year was a project that came to me in the very beginning of my studio’s life – 1981. Tony Walton, the enormously talented and fine designer, had gone to Richard Williams in search of a potential animator for WOTY (as we got to call the name of the show.) Dick recommended me. But before doing WOTY, there were some title segments needed for Prince of the City, a Sidney Lumet film. (I’ll discuss that film work some other day.)

Tony Walton designed the character, Katz, which would be the alter-ego of the show’s cartoonist hero, played by Harry Guardino. Through Katz, we’d learn about the problems of a relationship with a media star, played by Lauren Bacall. (All images enlarge by clicking.)
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It turned out to be a very intense production. Three minutes of animation turned into twelve as each segment was more successful than the last. There was no time for pencil tests. I had to run to Boston, where the show was in try-outs, to project different segments weekly; these went into the show that night – usually Wednesdays. I’d rush to the lab to get the dailies, speed to the editor, Sy Fried, to synch them up to a click track that was pre-recorded, then race to the airport to fly to the show for my first screening. Any animation blips would have to be corrected on Thursdays.

There was a small crew working out of a tiny east 32nd Street apartment. This was Dick Williams‘ apartment in NY after he;d finished Raggedy Ann. He was rarely there, and when he did stay in NY, he didn’t stay at the apartment. He asked me to use it as my studio and to make sure the rent was paid on time and the mail was collected. Since we had to work crazy hours, it was a surprise one Saturday morning to find that I’d awakened elderly Jazz great, Max Kaminsky, who Dick had also loaned the apartment for a night. Embarrassed, at the awkward confrontation, I ultimately moved to a larger studio – my own – shortly thereafter. Dick was convinced I was upset at him and the two of us didn’t talk for years afterward.

Here are a couple of photos of some of us working on WOTY:

Tony Charmoli was the show’s choreographer. He worked with me in plotting out the big dance number – a duet between Harry Guardino and our cartoon character. I think this is the only time on Broadway that a cartoon character spoke and sang and danced with a live actor on stage. John Canemaker is taking this photograph and Phillip Schopper is setting up the 16mm camera.

Here Tony Charmoli shows us how to do a dance step. Phillip Schopper, who is filming Tony, figures out how to set up his camera. We used Tony’s dancing as reference, sooting Tony’s dancing in 16mm, but our animation moves were too broad for anyone to have thought they might have been rotoscoped.

John Canemaker worked with Sy Fried, our editor. John did principal animation with me on this one big opening number. Here they’re working with the click track and the live footage of Tony Charmoli to plot out the moves.

At one point I asked John to have the character, Katz, flick his tale at Harry Guardino, tripping the live actor mid-dance. It got a laugh at every performance.

Steve Parton supervised the ink and paint. To get the sharpest lines, we inked on cels and didn’t color the drawings. It was B&W with a bright red bow-tie. A spotlight matte over the character, was bottom-lit on camera by Gary Becker. It was shot almost like a pencil test with high contraxt to get those very sharp lines.

5 6
5. Steve Parton works with painter Barbara Samuels
6. Joey Epstein paints with fire in her eyes.

Joey Epstein paints “Katz.”

8 9
8. Harry Guardino on stage with the creation of “Tessie Kat” developing on screen behind him. This was Harry’s first big solo.
The filmed segment was shot backwards so the matte would develop as the song sang on.
The entire seqeunce took about 2½ minutes.
9. John Canemaker gets to see some of his animation with Sy Fried, editor.

One of my quick stops from the lab on the way to Boston? No, I think this is a posed photo.

All together we had more than 12 minutes of animateion song duets between Harry Guardino and Katz. It was originally supposed to be three pieces totaling about five minutes. The animation was so successful in the tryouts in Boston that they kep adding more material. Finally the last song added – about 1½ minutes never made it to New York. Harry never properly learned it in Boston and he was too nervous for the Broadway opening to learn it for the big Opening. So the number was cut.

Lately there’s been more animation on Broadway and off-Broadway. Things are done with digital screens, and the technical aspect has gotten easier. One version of Sunday In the Park with George had painted backgrounds developing via animation as the characters sang their songs. Too bad the show didn’t offer the heart that was in the original Sondheim gem, when here wa no animation involved. Hopefully, eventually there will be something more. We did a show that was very successful (the show wasn’t successful; the animation was.) I’d love to try again. The only other try I had was to do musical scenics for the Overture to Meet Me In St. Louis on Broadway. The producers were irritants and didn’t help move things forward. I did get to meet the songwriter, Hugh Martin, before he passed away. That was my treat in that project.

- Just in the past couple of weeks, one of my favorite current artists, Sue Coe, had a show in NY at the Galerie St. Etienne. Ms. Coe is very much akin to my favorite current playwright, Caryl Churchill. They’re both so brilliantly political. Last night, I saw an excellent production of Ms. Churchill’s anti-Thatcher play, Serious Money. Despite the very low budget, off-Broadway production, the show was every bit as great as I’d hoped. I tried to find something that was marginally related for today’s Splog, and I’ve decided to recap this Sue Coe post. Especially because it links to others about Ms. Coe’s work, I thought it very appropriate.

I feel as though I need a larger dose from the Coes and Curchills of the world as Mitt Romney bounds about the airwaves these days.

– Sue Coe is one of my favorite current artists. A wholly political artist, it seems to me that she is the extension of the German Expressionists, focusing on man’s inhumanity to man, or Goya‘s Caprichos or Ben Shahn‘s attention to political injustice. All of her work seems to fit into this form, and I am completely attracted to it.

She is represented by the Galerie St. Etienne, in New York. Years ago, I was there, arranged by HBO, to see some paintings by Grandma Moses. While they pulled out the paintings for me, I was able to see a stack of lithographs by Sue Coe, and it made for a memorable day for me.

I’ve posted a number of other pieces about her and will probably do it again. You can view a couple here and here.

About 15 years ago, The New Yorker magazine, printed a number of pictoral essays by her, and I’ve saved several of them. Here’s her study of “Nightcourt” in the Bronx. I believe these images were represented by Galerie St. Etienne.

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Recently, I found myself talking about my work on this show. It made me go back in search of this post from January 2007, and I thought I’d recap today. Hope you don’t mind.

Woman of the Year was a project that came to me in the second year of my studio’s life – 1981. Tony Walton, the enormously talented and fine designer, had gone to Richard Williams in search of a potential animator for WOTY (as we got to call the name of the show.) Dick recommended me. But before doing WOTY, there were some title segments needed for Prince of the City, a Sidney Lumet film. (I’ll discuss that film work some other day.)

Tony Walton designed the character, Katz, which would be the alter-ego of the show’s cartoonist hero, played by Harry Guardino. Through Katz, we’d learn about the problems of a relationship with a media star, played by Lauren Bacall.
.

It turned out to be a very intense production. Three minutes of animation turned into twelve as each segment was more successful than the last. There was no time for pencil tests. I had to run to Boston, where the show was in try-outs, to project different segments weekly; these went into the show that night – usually Wednesdays. I’d rush to the lab to get the dailies, speed to the editor, Sy Fried, to synch them up to a click track that was pre-recorded, then race to the airport to fly to the show for my first screening. Any animation blips would have to be corrected on Thursdays.

There was a small crew working out of a tiny east 32nd Street apartment. This was Dick Williams’
apartment in NY. He was rarely here, _______(All images enlarge by clicking.)
and when he did stay in NY, he didn’t
stay at the apartment. He asked me to use it as my studio and to make sure the rent was paid on time and the mail was collected. Since we had to work crazy hours, it was a surprise one Saturday morning to find that I’d awakened elderly Jazz great, Max Kaminsky, who Dick had also loaned the apartment. Embarrassed, I ultimately moved to a larger studio – my own – shortly thereafter.

Here are a couple of photos of some of us working:

Tony Charmoli was the show’s choreographer. He worked with me in plotting out the big dance number – a duet between Harry Guardino and our cartoon character. I think this is the only time on Broadway that a cartoon character spoke and sang with a live actor on stage. John Canemaker is taking this photograph and Phillip Schopper is setting up the 16mm camera.

Here Tony Charmoli shows us how to do a dance step. Phillip Schopper, who is filming Tony, figures out how to set up his camera. We used Tony’s dancing as reference, but our animation moves were too broad for anyone to have thought they might have been rotoscoped.

John Canemaker is working with Sy Fried, our editor. John did principal animation with me on the big number. Here they’re working with the click track and the live footage of Tony Charmoli to plot out the moves.

Steve Parton supervised the ink and paint. To get the sharpest lines, we inked on cels and didn’t color the drawings. It was B&W with a bright red bowtie. A spotlight matte over the character, bottom-lit on camera by Gary Becker.

5 6
5. Steve Parton works with painter Barbara Samuels
6. Joey Epstein paints with fire in her eyes.

Joey Epstein paints “Katz.”

8 9
8. Harry Guardino on stage with the creation of “Tessie Kat” developing on screen behind him. This was Harry’s first big solo.
9. John Canemaker gets to see some of his animation with Sy Fried, editor.

One of my quick stops from the lab on the way to Boston? No, I think this is a posed photo.

Back in 2007, Eddie Fitzgerald had an excellent piece on his site about the Yiddish Theater. This encouraged me, at the time, to write a post built on the back of some of the set designs of Boris Aronson, one of the greatest of all set designers for Broadway. I’ve added to it and recap it here.

Most people have forgotten the theatrical heritage that came out of the Yiddish Theater. The immigrants to America brought a theatrical treasure with them. In New York, Second Avenue housed dozens of theaters that entertained a very large audience with hundreds of plays. The shows, of course, were all performed in Yiddish. These shows were not only in Manhattan but in the outer boroughs as well.

Many performers stepped out of Yiddish Theater into stardom, but there were also many directors, writers, composers and designers that emerged as well to create the history of the mainstream theater.

Boris Aronson, a Russian immigrant, designed for the Yiddish Unser Theater in the Bronx. He took his position as an opportunity to introduce Constructivist designs to audiences. New art was entering America at the popular level, and it was accepted.

Aronson did quite a number of set pieces and costume designs before moving over to the mainstream, English-speaking theater. He became the foremost designer on Broadway designing the original productions of many shows such as Cabin In The Sky, Bus Stop, The Crucible, and Awake and Sing. His later work included Cabaret, Fiddler On The Roof, Company, Follies and Zorba.

Here are a few examples of the work he did for the Yiddish Theater.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The above three images are from Aronson’s first production.
The Constructivist designs were for Ansky’s production of Day and Night (1924).

The allegorical plays of the Yiddish theater often featured Heaven and Hell.
Here, Aronson designed a “a concert hall in the skies of hell.”
The show was Maurice Schwartz’ production of “Angels on Earth”
for the Yiddish Theater in 1929.

Here is his depiction of “Hell” in model form.

Here is the actual production of the “Hell” set.

The show “The Bronx Express” required a subway car (left) with advertising cards.
A tired buttonmaker on his way home from work dreams that these ads come to life. (right)

In the same show, the buttonmaker dreams of a beach resort boardwalk.
Aronson keeps the ceiling of the subway car intact for this set.

Designs for costumes for Joseph Buloff and Maurice Schwartz.

Schwartz (dressed as a woman) & Buloff

Costume designs for some of the Male Chorus.

- This past weekend I saw a new Broadway show produced by The Roundabout Theater Company, playing at Studio 54. Sondheim on Sondheim is a show which revisits all of Stephen Sondheim’s lengthy and brilliant career in the theater.

Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams and Tom Wopat lead a cast of eight who perform work from the Sondheim catalogue of songs, while cascading through the history of the man and, as a result, the history of modern theater – post Rodgers and Hammerstein.

The set for this is a modernist construction by designer Beowulf Borritt. If you ask me, this extraordinary design is a brilliant turn for theater. There’s a construction of 35 multiple screens that tie together or in parts projecting film, video, slides. Stephen Sondheim is a participant in the show in that he’s always there in some projection talking about the shows, his career, his cocreators and producers. The highlight of the show, for me, was the end where Sondheim plays “Anyone Can Whistle” on the piano, and the cast sings to this. Simple and very emotional.

Through a lot of searching I was able to locate some of his original watercolors on line and thought I’d show some of these. A couple came from a slide program on the NYTimes which spoke about the use of projections in theater designs. This has fascinated me since my work on Woman of the Year, projecting an animated character behind the actor onto a 43 foot screen. (The animation work on Sunday in the Park with George – also a Roundabout Production at Studio 54 – was a projection miracle, though the rest of that recent production left me a bit cold.)

Let’s start with a short storyboard sequence which shows Sondheim aging.

1
The sequence begins with a young Stephen Sondheim.

2
Slowly, and musically the image transforms . . .

3
. . . through digital projections . . .

4

5
. . . to an older face.

6
Finally ending with the 80 year old Sondheim.

The set . . .

The set is a somewhat abstract construction that utilizes many
screens of digital projections both video and slide.

You can see how the parts shape shift even though
the projections continue on the parts.

Lighting by designer Ken Billington is also brilliantly part of this set.

All of the parts – lighting, set, projections – all act as one.

The history of the Presidency serves as a backdrop for the ASSASSINS number.

Ultimately, the portrait of Sondheim comes together.

All sketches © 2010 Beowulf Boritt

These drawings and watercolors give an indication of what the set looks like, but they can’t relay the brilliance of the device. It’s magnificently used, and the photos, video and animation on the screens is quite often brilliant. I can’t begin to capture the essence of it, but I can tell you it’s a highlight in theater for me this year.

The orchestrations for this show are by Michael Starobin, and they are just as wonderful as anything else he’s done. The miniscule orchestra never sounds it, and this should show others on Broadway how to do it. It was my pleasure to work with Michael on a number of films he scored for me. I always felt privileged to have him there and excited as any note of music came in for those many films (which included Lyle Lyle Crocodile, Ira Sleeps Over, and Poky Little Puppy’s First Christmas.)

This show is excellent, and it is even more superb if, like me, you’re a Sondheim devotee. You couldn’t ask for more from theater – except perhaps a return to some of those original productions as they sit and grow in my memory. Elaine Stritch singing Ladies Who Lunch, Glynis Johns singing Send in the Clowns, Mako and others singing Someone in a Tree, Mandy Patinkin singing Finishing the Hat – There are just too many others to keep mentioning.

However, I do have to say that in several cases, arrangements and production of some of the songs performed in this show are better than the original versions. The cast of eight sounds brilliant and easily outperforms the British cast that did Sunday in the Park recently at this same theater. Vanessa Williams is truly a star, you can’t take your eyes off of her, yet she sings with the ensemble.

If you have any affinity for Sondheim, go to see this show for a brilliant performance of many of his songs as well as a near-perfect cast and a magnificent set.

- Back in Jan 2007, I posted these photos from the animation production of Woman of the Year. I think these are interesting enough that they’re worth revisiting. So here, again, is that post:

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– To recap:
Woman of the Year was a project that came to me in the very start of my studio’s life – 1981.
Tony Walton, the enormously talented and fine designer, had gone to Richard Williams in search of a potential animator for WOTY (as we got to call the name of the show.) Dick recommended me. But before doing WOTY, there were some title segments needed for Prince of the City, a Sidney Lumet film. (I’ll discuss that film work some other day.)

Tony Walton designed the character, Katz, which would be the alter-ego of the show’s cartoonist hero, played by Harry Guardino. Through Katz, we’d learn about the problems of a relationship with a media star, played by Lauren Bacall.

It turned out to be a very intense production. Three minutes of animation turned into twelve as each segment was more successful than the last. ___________(All images enlarge by clicking.)
There was no time for pencil tests. I had to run
to Boston weekly, where the show was in try-outs, to project different segments; these went into the show that night – usually Wednesdays. I’d rush to the lab to get the dailies, speed to the editor, Sy Fried, to synch them up to a click track that was pre-recorded, then race to the airport to fly to the show for my first screening. Any animation blips would have to be corrected on Thursdays.

There was a small crew working out of a tiny east 32nd Street apartment. This was Dick Williams’ apartment in NY. He was rarely here, and when he did stay in NY, he didn’t stay at the apartment. He asked me to use it as my studio and to make sure the rent was paid on time and the mail was collected. Since we had to work crazy hours, it was a surprise one Saturday morning to find that I’d awakened elderly Jazz great, Max Kaminsky, who Dick had also loaned the apartment. Embarrassed, I ultimately moved to a larger studio – my own – shortly thereafter.

Here are a couple of photos of some of us working:

Tony Charmoli was the show’s choreographer. He worked with me in plotting out the big dance number – a duet between Harry Guardino and our cartoon character. I think this is the only time on Broadway that a cartoon character spoke and sang with a live actor on stage. John Canemaker is taking this photograph and Phillip Schopper is setting up the 16mm camera.

Here Tony Charmoli shows us how to do a dance step. Phillip Schopper, who is filming Tony, figures out how to set up his camera. We used Tony’s dancing as reference, but our animation moves were too broad for anyone to have thought they might have been rotoscoped.

John Canemaker is working with Sy Fried, our editor. John did principal animation with me on the big number. Here they’re working with the click track and the live footage of Tony Charmoli to plot out the moves.

Steve Parton supervised the ink and paint. To get the sharpest lines, we inked on cels and didn’t color the drawings. It was B&W with a bright red bowtie. A spotlight matte over the character, bottom-lit on camera by Gary Becker.

5 6
5. Steve Parton works with painter Barbara Samuels
6. Joey Epstein paints with fire in her eyes.

Joey Epstein paints “Katz.”

8 9
8. Harry Guardino on stage with the creation of “Tessie Kat” developing on screen behind him. This was Harry’s first big solo.
9. John Canemaker gets to see some of his animation with Sy Fried, editor.

One of my quick stops from the lab on the way to Boston? No, I think this is a posed photo.

The success of the animation (including good reviews) posed a small problem for me. The rest of the show was ripped over the coals. When I started using some quotes about me in industrial ads, the producers came down on me for gloating over the others who’d gotten negative reviews.

All the same, it was a real learning experience in a big Broadway kinda way.

– As mentioned yesterday, last Wednesday, I saw the Roundabout Theater Company‘s production of Stephen Sondheim‘s glorious show, Sunday In The Park With George.

The reviews were universally glowing calling it everything from “Art” to a “Masterpiece.” In one sense, I’m glad of it, but in another I find this completely dispiriting.
_________________________________Sam Buntrock, the director, on the set.
The show is a restaging of ___________________
Sondheim’s musical, with book by James Lapine, of the magnificent production that premiered in 1985 and won the Pulitzer Prize.

The musical’s first half tells the story of Georges Seurat’s creation of the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Georges is addicted to his painting and
ignores his mistress, “Dot,” who moves away from him, to America, with her newly born child, Marie. George’s obsession with art, and this painting in particular, claims his life. He dies at age 31.

The second half of the show finds the elderly Marie at the Chicago Art Institute, where the painting is being celebrated on its 100th anniversary. Marie’s grandson, George, is an artist who is premiering his 7th Chromalume in celebration of his Great Grandfather’s work. After Marie dies, _____Mandy patinkin, the original Georges
he makes a pilgrimage to Paris to visit
the island of la Grand Jatte. He finds artistic inspiration from the ghost of “Dot,” his Great Grandmother.

In short the show is about Art, with a capital “A”.

In its original incarnation, I got it. I saw the show three times on Broadway back then, and I cried fiercely through the performances of Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters.
The show felt perfect, and I was not only moved emotionally but artistically as well. (Actually the third time found Robert Westenberg in the role of Georges.) The show and its soundtrack was and has remained a great source of inspiration for me.

Animation works behind the actors as well as on top of these cut out trees.
The trees throw no shadow, and the animation on them doesn’t overlap
onto the background.

The current production has been imported from England where it was enormously successful. Apparently, judging by the reviews, it will be here as well.

The director is an ex animator who has moved into theatrical direction; this being his first real show. And it’s a big one. His conceit was to use animation for the painting and its creation as well as in other small sections.

This works wonderfully, at times, and horribly at other times. At the very beginning, Georges wallks out to a large, bare room painted white (though the lighting makes it look like a soft gray.) With Georges’ first big gesture a line draws completely across the entire set. Then it animates, on vocal cue, to a blurring of the chalk line. From this the chalk drawing of the painting fills the stage across the forced perspective of the room with its four doors. At this early point in the show, I thought that this might be interesting.

Every so often, on cue to the songs, a character drawn on the background animates. There’s a slight move and then a freeze … then another move … then a freeze. The movement generally is very lifelike, so one assumes it was motion capture and flattened to look like a chalk drawing or painted image. At one point, a soldier looks horribly done. It almost feels like a very early cgi character – plastic and hollow.

This became a problem for me. I began to look for the movement on the background and felt completely distracted from the show. A boat moves on the background. A man leans against a tree. A dog takes three steps and freezes. People wipe on or fade in and/or off. My eyes were often diverted. If wanted to watch the show – the actors and the complex story – I was distracted by irrelevant animation.

I was mostly impressed with the cast. Jenna Russell as “Dot” and “Marie” was excellent and seemed, at times, to be channeling Bernadette Peters from the original. Daniel Evans didn’t channel Mandy Patinkin, and I had more difficulty with him as “Georges” and found him more appropriate as “George.” I did have a problem with his being bald in the second half. At first I didn’t recognize this as the same actor, and I liked that. However, when he meets up with the ghost of “Dot” in Paris, I wondered how she so easily recognized him without the hair and beard. He no longer looked like her lover, Georges.

I was particularly bothered by the critical scene of Georges Seurat in his studio where he’s obsessed with “painting the hat.” He starts with a canvas (yes, it’s supposed to be a painting but the characters on it are animated, moving), but then he moves to a pad on which I guess he’s drawing the hat. All this movement keeps the eye moving and occupied, but it plays against the scene and its emotion. In the original, he stays at that canvas painting the hat and painting the hat and painting the hat. He only moves away from it to argue with “Dot.” This director isn’t clear in what he’s trying to say. I know he’s trying to “paint the hat” because the lyrics tell us that, but we don’t experience the difficulty of getting that “hat” just right. I understood it because I know the show, but I wonder what someone new to the musical would have gotten.

The projections are stunning in that they don’t seem to be on top of the actors, so I wasn’t sure how they were projected. There were no shadows of the actors thrown on the walls. Surely it couldn’t be rear-screen projection since you can see the walls, and when a door opens the projection moves with the door. Presumably it was multiple projection moving over so large a screen of a set. I didn’t notice any keystoning.

The primary animation stays on the back wall and is deceptive in giving you a false sense of perspective. At one point, when it represents the painting exhibited on the museum’s back wall, the painting and the wall move back in perspective as the room extends enormously. The extension, of course, is just an animated image, but it looks real as the actual room despite moving back. You can’t feel where the set and the movie separate, although you’re watching that rectangular screen of a wall.
These technically magnificent projections were designed and executed by by Timothy Bird and the Knifedge Creative Network.

I started off by saying, I’m glad it’ll be successful. It means that the technical achievement, which is a large leap and done extraordinarily well, would be utilized in other shows. However, I find it dispiriting in that it’s all too distracting. Essentially what’s happening is that a movie on the set is overwhelming the theatrical events in front of the screen. I came to the theater, not a movie. The animation should be absolutely and completely subservient to the show and not get in the way. I found it more moving in the original to view a flat, cut-out soldier than to see the gimmicky animation in this version. Yes, the painting and the corridor moves into the distance, but it’s immediately followed by another copy of the painting dropping close up to us. Why did it move away except, of course, for an effect? That’s the problem with this show, the effect is too big. When Georges is painting a painting, why are the characters he’s painting moving – however slightly? It’s a painting and the movement doesn’t mean anything to what’s going on. It’s just annoying.

I wish Sam Buntrock would have limited what he was animating. Less is more in my book. One wonders what a more established directed would have asked for. An interview with this animator-turned-director appeared in the Roundabout’s membership magazine, Front & Center. I haven’t found this on line, so I post jpegs of it below.

1 2

3 4

The NYPost offers a video clip from the show giving a brief idea of the animation here. It also gives a clip of the song where Georges is drawing the “hat” when he should be painting the hat.

- I am a lunatic for the work of Lewis Carroll.
As such, naturally his Alice In Wonderland has always intrigued me. The book, itself, has inspired so many artists since it was written that we have to recognize it as a great work of art.

I think I’ve seen a dozen film versions and have seen at least four theatrical versions. I must say that some incredibly inspirational moments have come for me out of the best of these. Off the top of my head I think immediately of Alice by Robert Wilson. This was a theatrical version which dealt with the relationship between Alice and Charles Dodgson. I think of Haddock’s Eyes by David Del Tredici as performed by Tom Hulce. This was a small show that somehow touched me; I’ve thought of it often since I saw it in 1987. Or I think of David Del Tredici‘s Final Alice, a stunning piece of music. There’s the beautiful film Dreamchild, which includes some stunning puppetry by the Henson group. I think of moments from the Lou Bunin film, or even Disney’s version. I think of some of my favorite illustrated versions, led by Ralph Steadman‘s book. When I see a version on line, any version, I’m conditioned to stop.

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- Nonsenselit.org features the entire comic book 1951 Unbirthday Party with Alice in Wonderland. The art is quite interesting and the layout of the comic book is certainly creative. Once they get to Wonderland, the boxed format of the traditional comic book is out the window, and the strip is more chaotic. The inking for the strip is beautifully done, and the magazine is worth viewing for that alone.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- A favorite site, the Blog of Bosh led me to the site of the Bavarian State Opera. There I found a lot of information about an operatic version of Alice which they produced in June of this year. It was written by David Henry Hwang and composed by Unsik Chin. This is obviously a creatively produced theatrical version of the story. There are many stills on the site and a stunning little video with clips from what is obviously an imaginative production. I urge you to look at the video if you have any interest in Alice or creative theatrical productions.

Despite the imagination and creativity on display in the video, there seems to have been some in-fighting between the composer and the designer. Some reviews have called the staging static. You can read a positive review from the LA Times which gives a full history of the show. There’s a negative review in the International Herald Tribune. I’d like to see a production for myself.

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New Yorkers and puppet theater fanciers might take note of the Alice In Wonderland Puppet Festival underway at the Here Arts Center.

Drama of Works presents this festival of puppetry now performing through Oct. 7th. As the program states: “…this production takes a look at (Dodgson’s) diary as well as Alice’s memoirs. It weaves together these texts and also real snapshots taken by Carroll of Alice, poems of his turned into songs, and fragments of Wonderland.”

It includes free film showings of Svankmajer’s Alice and Lou Bunin’s Alice In Wonderland.
The Here Arts Center, 145 6th Avenue (Spring St.) New York, NY 10013

Curiouser and curiouser.

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Talking about another Alice, my friend Tom Hachtman has sent me a nice drawing featuring his Gertrude and Alice characters. I always like sharing these since they usually cheer me up.
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Eddie Fitzgerald had an excellent piece on his site this week about the Yiddish Theater. Most people have forgotten the theatrical heritage that came out of that form. The immigrants to America brought a theatrical treasure with them. In New York, Second Avenue housed dozens of theaters that entertained a very large audience with hundreds of plays. The shows, of course, were all performed in Yiddish. These shows were not only in Manhattan but in the outer boroughs as well.

Many performers stepped out of Yiddish Theater into stardom, but there were also many directors, writers, composers and designers that emerged as well to create the history of the mainstream theater.

My favorite set designer, Boris Aronson, a Russian immigrant, designed for the Yiddish Unser Theater in the Bronx. He took his position as an opportunity to introduce Constructivist designs to audiences. New art was entering America at the popular level, and it was accepted.

Aronson did quite a number of set pieces and costume designs before moving over to the mainstream, English-speaking theater. He became the foremost designer on Broadway designing the original productions of many shows such as Cabin In The Sky, Bus Stop, The Crucible, and Awake and Sing. His later work included Cabaret, Fiddler On The Roof, Company, Follies and Zorba.

Here are a few examples of the work he did for the Yiddish Theater.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

The above three images are from Aronson’s first production. The Constructivist designs were for Ansky’s production of Day and Night (1924).

The allegorical plays of the Yiddish theater often featured Heaven and Hell. Here, Aronson designed a “a concert hall in the skies of hell.” The show was Maurice Schwartz’ production of “Angels on Earth” for the Yiddish Theater in 1929.

The show “The Bronx Express” required a subway car (pictured left) with advertising cards. A tired buttonmaker on his way home from work dreams that these ads come to life. (pictured right)

In the same show, the buttonmaker dreams of a beach resort boardwalk. Aronson keeps the ceiling of the subway car intact for this set.

– Last night I saw a program at the New Victory theater on the revamped 42nd Street. (This theater was built in 1900 by Oscar Hammer-stein I and is the oldest theater on the block. It predates the Ziegfeld Follies!)
The program was Macbeth, as performed by marionettes. The Compagnia Marionettistica Carlo Colla e Figli is the world’s oldest puppet troupe. It was established in the late 18th century in Milan and has been in operation ever since.

Anyone who his visited my studio or home has a good idea that I might be a marionette fan. They’re tucked into many a corner of my spaces. When I was a child I made them out of muslin and made clothes for them as well (and consequently learned how to sew). I bought them at expensive toy stores (I treasured the Lady and the Tramp puppets that I had.)
I built a puppet theater and charged admission to the kids of the neighborhood to come see the shows. (The candy counter made all the money.) With the cash, I bought more puppets and put on more shows.

I was intrigued with the very popular Bil and Cora Baird (maybe sometime I’ll tell you about my interview with Bil Baird for a job in his company), and the show I saw in their Barrow Street theater – Jack & the Beanstalk – was the last marionette program I saw prior to last night’s Macbeth.

Marionettes have specific problems – mechanical ones.
Strings have to be hidden, unless you’re some kind of avant garde puppeteer who wants to call attention to them. The longer the strings, the greater the problems.
Gravity is another problem. Puppets often seem to be weightless, and to some degree, they are. They’re held aloft by the overhead puppeteer manipulating them. Hence, walks often look comical. It’s easier for them to glide along rather than imitate a walk.

Puppet animation has a great advantage since they’re moved ahead and manipulated frame by frame. They can be made to do anything a human can, if the animator is good enough.

The program last night had an enormous set filling a stage. There was always a foreground area – a beautiful wooded setting, painted to look like a Romantic watercolor of the 18th century or a castle made of bricks – which left an opening of about 10 ft wide by 8 ft high. (This is purely speculation from the 8th row.) Above the opening, of course, are the puppeteers. About ten of them work above the stage; they took a bow at the end to reveal themselves.

There were six actors who sat in the orchestra pit with their backs to us. Their performances, I thought, were a bit uneven. Macbeth, himself, was brilliant until it came time for him to say some of the character’s great lines. They were also miked, and the sound didn’t come from the stage but from speakers. The puppeteers, however, were so expert that I didn’t have any confusion in knowing which puppet was speaking.

Within the framing device were many beautiful sets in which the puppets would work. All of the settings were elaborate and theatrical, all of them complex. Large scenes employed upwards of twenty marionettes moving about. In one opening scene, four men talked in the foreground while endless groups of characters walked behind them – several on horseback.

Yes, there were infrequent laughs at how the characters walked (especially the horses), but the manipulation had to have been the best I’ve seen, and for the most part you bought it. Team America captured quite a bit of the funny part of marionettes, but Macbeth captured some of the greatness of them.

I would have liked the show to have been a bit more theatrical – the lights, the sets, the puppet performances were all magnificent, but the writing could have incorporated less of the talk and more of the violence of the story. The company seemed to be trying to show the subtleties they could perform with the marionettes, and they succeeded. I wish they balanced the climaxes in the show a little more carefully when they set about abbreviating Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Sorry, I have a hundred more things to say about the subject, so I allowed myself to ramble here. I will come back to it, and be a little more organized in my writing. But the show was sterling and shouldn’t be missed. It plays through this weekend at the New Victory Theater.