Authenticity and a passion for the subject remain the hallmarks of this well-designed, intimate look at theaters and...
A theater lover chronicles actors’ backstage lives.
For her new book, Blake (Captured, 2014) took her camera to six small-town community and professional theaters in New England, Pennsylvania, and Florida. She documented what John Shea, artistic director emeritus of the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket, describes in the foreword as “the critical and intimate moments of transformation when the actor gives birth to the character.” The author’s fascination with this “metamorphosis” that actors undergo to become a conduit for the stories they will present on stage is clear in her casually evocative color photographs. More than 60 in number, crisply framed by white space, they draw the eye with their slice-of-life scenes of actors—male and female, older and younger—getting into costume, applying a mustache, straightening a wig, brushing on makeup, taking a coffee break, sharing a laugh, or running lines. Accompanying many of the photos are well-curated quotes by actors who speak of their roles and give considered, often ardent thoughts about what being involved with the theater has meant to them. Accessible to a wide range of readers, smartly designed with a deft balance of text and pictures, the volume spotlights each theater with its own section, introduced by Blake’s lively narrative relating the origins of the institution’s founding, a brief history of the productions staged there, and an insider’s anecdote or two. Other photos in the book show theater exteriors and backstage environments (a shelf of jumbled props, utilitarian dressing rooms, makeup tools, costumes) when the players are absent. The author adds further interest and visual appeal with informational tidbits about each theater in framed boxes integrated into the photographic layout. These well-preserved moments are informed not only by Blake’s skill with a camera, but also by her past as part of the theatrical community, a pursuit, she writes in her eloquent preface, kindled by her own early experiences as an audience member.
Authenticity and a passion for the subject remain the hallmarks of this well-designed, intimate look at theaters and performers through a camera lens.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: IB Publications
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
