Word: kaufmans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That difference is what Moises Kaufman is exploring. The Venezuelan-born playwright and director used a similar technique in his last play, Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, drawing dialogue primarily from historical writings and transcripts. In the Shepard case, he saw a "watershed" contemporary event and enlisted members of his Tectonic Theater Project to help develop a stage work from it. The actors found the townspeople bruised by the media yet surprisingly willing to talk. "What helped was that we were clearly not experts and were groping our way," says cast member Greg Pierotti. The interlopers...
Having just started previews for a May 18 off-Broadway opening, Kaufman and company are still trying to pare down the play's bulky three-hour length. But the work's passion and power are clearly in evidence. On a stage populated mainly by wooden chairs and tables, eight actors talk directly to the audience, describing the interviews they did and re-creating them at the same time. There are choice, often harrowing details: the bartender recalling that the two killers paid for their pitcher of beer entirely in dimes and quarters; a deputy sheriff noting that the only place...
Like Anna Deavere Smith, Kaufman is pioneering a new genre of theatrical reportage. But where Smith's one-woman shows (Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992) showcase the performer as much as the journalism, Kaufman is aiming for a more radical redefinition of what theater is capable of. The project, he says, "taught me something about theater that I had never really felt. And that is the origin of theater is a community talking to itself. It was a striking experience to think that perhaps in Greek times, when this started happening, it was about 'us,' or an idea...
...Unite" are written in a plethora of languages. The dining room is decorated with half a dozen Communist posters in vivid reds and oranges. "Not everyone here is politically active but they are opinionated. They are not necessarily vegetarian, but they will sit and talk about its merits" says Kaufman...
...when naked bodies blur by in the yard, Co-opers take it slow in the warmth of Lamont. While they pretend to study, they take off their clothes, piece by piece. Other readers often think the stripping is spontaneous and join in. "You really get a good look," says Kaufman. "It's much more about being naked and less about freezing to death...