For living-theater fans only.
A plain-Jane year in the life of a single woman in London, told with deadening restraint.
In chapters the size of postage stamps, Smith (Misadventures, not reviewed) tells of her year living in an East End bed-sit. The circumstances are the stuff of everyday: three other women live in the house; the gas, electric, and hot water are coin-operated; boyfriends are not supposed to spend the night during the week, but one is in permanent residence downstairs; her floor-mate plays the TV and stereo much too loudly, and the other residents consider her a “selfish cow.” In an easy voice conspicuous in its flatness, Smith tells readers, “the toilet was an absolute disgrace,” and, “living next to Laura made life unpleasant and I considered what to do about it.” What she does is meekly mention the volume, and Laura tells her to shove off. There is much parrying and thrusting as they seek to drive one another mad, though Smith keeps an even—not to say bland—keel while relating events. A neighbor leaves the dog out too long and it cries, bath water is nicked, the rota of toilet paper renewal is often forgotten. The author goes out dancing occasionally, or to a bar, but is more often found in her room with tea and television. There is an awful lot of talk about laundry, and readers’ heart monitors may well be flat-lining at the artless placidity of it all. Smith expresses no yearning, no introspection, no ups and downs. Even her rare fits of self-assertion are without inflection: “Each time I ran the bath I found it was rinsed but not cleaned. . . . I cleaned the bath before I got in it and only gave it a quick rinse after I'd used it. That way we both faced a dirty bath.” Such is the drama of life with Laura.
For living-theater fans only.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2003
ISBN: 1-4000-3267-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
A witty trip through a unique life in the theater.
Reminiscences by one of the pioneers of American avant-garde theater.
Few artists’ lives have been as colorful as that of Gregory. Born in Paris in 1934 to Russian Jewish parents, he lived a privileged life of “private clubs, private schools, debutante balls” once the family left wartime Europe for New York. They spent summers in a California house Thomas Mann rented to them, where they socialized with celebrities like Errol Flynn, with whom his mother had an affair. He discovered a passion for acting when he attended a New York private school “established to train repressed, polite, withdrawn little WASPs.” Much of this book, co-written by London (An Ideal Theater: Founding Visions for a New American Art, 2013, etc.), is a series of vignettes, some more entertaining than others, about Gregory’s artistic and spiritual journey: stage manager jobs at regional theaters, lessons at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio, pilgrimages to ashrams in India, and outrageous flourishes in the plays he directed, such as a production of Max Frisch’s Firebugs that featured an actual fire engine onstage and scenes from Hiroshima projected onto a trampoline—a gig that got him fired. The narrative is filled with anecdotes about such luminaries as fellow director Jerzy Grotowski, who had a profound influence on Gregory’s work, and Gregory Peck, who “slugged” him during an argument during the filming of Tartuffe. The highlight for many readers will likely be details of his long collaboration—“forty-five years and only one fight”—with Wallace Shawn and the making of their art-house hit My Dinner With André. These sections chronicle the duo’s struggles to make the picture, from Gregory’s memorizing hundreds of pages of dialogue for “the longest speaking role in the history of film” to his wearing long johns during the shoot because they couldn’t afford to heat the hotel where the restaurant scenes were staged.
A witty trip through a unique life in the theater.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-374-29854-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
A tiny book, not much bigger than a pamphlet, with huge potential impact.
A collection of articulate, forceful speeches made from September 2018 to September 2019 by the Swedish climate activist who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Speaking in such venues as the European and British Parliaments, the French National Assembly, the Austrian World Summit, and the U.N. General Assembly, Thunberg has always been refreshingly—and necessarily—blunt in her demands for action from world leaders who refuse to address climate change. With clarity and unbridled passion, she presents her message that climate change is an emergency that must be addressed immediately, and she fills her speeches with punchy sound bites delivered in her characteristic pull-no-punches style: “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.” In speech after speech, to persuade her listeners, she cites uncomfortable, even alarming statistics about global temperature rise and carbon dioxide emissions. Although this inevitably makes the text rather repetitive, the repetition itself has an impact, driving home her point so that no one can fail to understand its importance. Thunberg varies her style for different audiences. Sometimes it is the rousing “our house is on fire” approach; other times she speaks more quietly about herself and her hopes and her dreams. When addressing the U.S. Congress, she knowingly calls to mind the words and deeds of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. The last speech in the book ends on a note that is both challenging and upbeat: “We are the change and change is coming.” The edition published in Britain earlier this year contained 11 speeches; this updated edition has 16, all worth reading.
A tiny book, not much bigger than a pamphlet, with huge potential impact.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-14-313356-8
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2019
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