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Though Jackson and Ortega shared directorial duties while producing the tour, “This Is It” witnesses the extent to which Jackson’s relentless perfectionism drives the entire show. Far from the shaky, soft-spoken intonations audiences are used to hearing from Jackson, he speaks in an unmistakably succinct, deliberate manner throughout the film. Issuing sometimes minute and nuanced commands to a corps of dancers, musicians, choreographers, and crew, he manages to dole out his authority with an uncanny blend of warmth and immediacy. Responding to a musician’s reassurance that he?...
Just as the film is missing much of the rabid fan appreciation typical of Jackson’s shows, his rehearsal performances reveal a subdued version of the explosive entertainer’s song and dance capabilities. Often reminding his colleagues that he’s conserving his energy for the actual show, it’s hard not to wonder just what the final product would have looked like, though the film certainly captures a great deal of his signature showmanship. Still, the lack of opening-night caliber fanfare allows “This Is It?...
...illuminating Jackson’s subtleties in “This Is It,” it’s because the director is all too familiar with Jackson’s creative process, having worked with Jackson on his last two world tours. Ortega utilizes split screens to show the barely discernible variations of Jackson’s dancing, jerkily grooving to the same song on three different occasions. He often focuses on his facial expressions—a tense grimace taking shape when something doesn’t sit right with him and a serene smile of satisfaction...
...through November 7 at the Loeb Experimental Theater, tells the story of that infamous character for whom the term “sadism” was coined, the Marquis de Sade, and his internment at the Charenton Asylum shortly after the French Revolution. A play within a play, the show aims to combine its two settings—revolutionary Paris and an asylum fifteen years later—with an emphasis on the similarities between the seemingly disparate conditions...
...understanding of “Marat/Sade,” therefore, relies on an appreciation of its complementary contexts. The production aims to use asylum and revolution to emphasize one another and comment on the present day. In doing so it hopes to show that violent desperation is timeless and that it can bring any of us—all of us—to the brink of insanity...