Word: aronson
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Unlike a closeup look at the moon, the visual impact of Pacific Overtures is ravishingly beautiful. The screens and sets (Boris Aronson) and costumes (Florence Klotz) transport one hypnotically into the realm of ukiyoe, the "floating world" of the Japanese print. The shape and tone of the show is that of a Kabuki-styled operetta. It is audaciously ambitious and flagrantly pretentious. Pacific Overtures attempts to portray the Westernization of Japan after the arrival of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry's trade mission in 1853. The appearance of Perry's battleship is the evening's showstopper. First...
...Boris Aronson is 76, but he has obviously drunk at some fountain of creative vigor. He was born in Kiev, where at eight he wandered into an opera house and was transfixed with the beauty of a peacock painted on a stage curtain. He remained transfixed. Aronson studied set designing and in 1923 embarked on that large, frightening and decisive immigrant's gamble: the ship to New York and the land of opportunity. In 1927, he won his initial Broadway designing credit for a show called 2 x 2 = 5. It was the first of 88 sets for theater...
Fans and Prints. When Prince was planning Cabaret in 1966, he told Aronson that he saw similarities between what was happening in Germany in the immediate pre-Hitler era and what was happening in the U.S. Boris asked himself: " 'How do I convey this comparison to an audience?' It occurred to me to hang a huge mirror tilted on the stage which reflected the audience. It said, 'Look at yourselves...
Pacific Overtures culminates two lifelong love affairs for Boris Aronson, one with painting (he will soon hold his tenth one-man show), and the other with the prints and toys of Japan. To prepare for Overtures, Boris collected Japanese kites (a large black kite is used on the opening curtain). He studied the way Japanese wrap things; bamboo structures, for example, are held together by wrapping them in reeds or rattan. He also collected Japanese fans and Japanese prints of Perry's warships. In his cliffside home overlooking the Hudson River located near the town of Nyack, N.Y., Aronson...
...Says Aronson: "The Japanese artist has a peculiar way of seeing things. For instance, the white backdrops in Pacific Overtures are the way in which the Japanese depict clouds. Since this is a play about issues and not about people and moods, Hal and I decided on white lighting. The white shows everything on stage. It has a crispness, a simplicity, a directness about it." The entire show is lit by the harmony and taste of Boris Aronson's vision...