File spoon-archives/puptcrit.archive/puptcrit_1999/puptcrit.9908, message 62


Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 19:15:44 -0700
Subject: Re: PUPT: UNIMA-USA Citations For Excellence
From: Mary R Harrison <maryrh-AT-juno.com>


>BTW:  I saw Basil Twist's show in NYC last year - and it is a phenomenal
production!  Try to see it if you can.

I would certainly agree that Basil Twist's show is quite a phenomenon. 
It deserves an UNIMA as an innovative, experimental production by daring
to create an Abstract puppet play.  I must confess that it did not move
me.  I felt that every scene had the same weight and emphasis, even while
using different tools to do this. The Abstract art that has always
appealed to me has been Abstract Expressionist art which has contrast and
tension within it.  So I looked for these elements in this abstract
puppet play, because visually that's the style it most resembled.  In
retrospect I realize that I did him a disservice by forgetting the
varieties of Abstract art available.  The texture of the piece is much
closer to Abstract Impressionism, although that style is admittedly more
difficult to render with feathers and cloth underwater.  Still, if he
were pursuing Abstract Impressionism, which has been defined as
"Retaining the quiet uniform pattern of strokes that spread over the
canvas without climax or emphasis, these followers keep the Impressionist
manner of looking at a scene but leave out the scene." (E. De Kooning,
1956), then he was entirely and without question, successful. It's just
not my cup of tea.

Mary Robinette Harrison
Other Hand Productions
maryrh-AT-juno.com
http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Balcony/9662


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