Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Bluebird , directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch, and written by Simon Stephens, at Atlantic Theater Company Stage 2 this afternoon. Strong performance by Simon Russell Beale as a London cab driver whose reticence elicits life-stories from his fares. He reveals at the end that he has a harrowing story of his own. LW and I ran into the actor at the Grey Dog Cafe after the show. He was very pleasant when LW told him how fantastic he was in the play. Then I watched John Adams's opera Nixon in China on HD screen at Lincoln Center Plaza tonight.  Act 3, in which the Americans get roped into the story of the Communist Revolution is engagingly dramatic. The other acts are a little weird for my taste. The libretto seemed to be a patchwork of pseudo-philosophical statements and banal facts. The music with its minimalist repetitions is slightly more interesting. The opera has a kind of crude boldness that is more American than Chinese.

This "Tale" was produced by BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), The Old Vic, and Neal Street Productions, under the aegis of The Bridge Project. In his Director's Note, Sam Mendes explains that The Bridge Project was born of "a wish for artists, collaborators and audiences on both sides of the Atlantic to experience one another's work, talent, and artistry in the theater."  So, from Britain, Simon Russell Beale played the jealous King of Sicilia, Leontes; Rebecca Hall played his queen, Hermione; Paul Jesson played Camillo, a Lord who would not poison the king's imagined rival; Dakin Matthews (American) played Antigonus who is killed by the bear; and Sinead Cusack played Paulina, wife to Antigonus. Beale as Leontes and Cusack as Pauline were outstanding. Hall was moving at her trial scene, but lacklustre elsewhere.  The other country Bohemia was predominantly populated by Americans. Josh Hamilton played Polixenes, the King; Michael Braun played Florizel the ...