|
COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Throughout his career, George C. Wolfe has consistently been less influenced by the theatre than by film. Whether as the playwright of considerable promise who brought us "The Colored Museum" (1986), or as the director of considerable skill who put on "Jelly's Last Jam" (1992) and "Angels in America" (1993) and now runs New York's Public Theatre, he has always been a savvy populist at heart; he knows that the theatre has become an art form for the relatively few, but that it can be reinvigorated by the grammar of movies, which almost everyone speaks. The scenes he writes rarely drag, and the shows he stages often use blackouts to signal shifts in time and perspective which would otherwise have to be explained in onerous dialogue. Wolfe's love of movies and the jazzy rush he gets from making images work onstage with a cinematic smoothness are nowhere more apparent than in "Harlem Song," at the Apollo Theatre, a show he wrote and directed. "Harlem Song" is essentially a revue, using both old and new compositions, selected or written by Wolfe and the show's talented music supervisors, Zane Mark and Daryl Waters. It has no dialogue to speak of--or, at least, no dialogue that contributes significantly to the plot or helps to convey the historical time...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
