Word: staging
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Maybe not, but Liza is still somebody's idea of entertainment. Witness the frenzied scene a few nights ago at Broadway's Palace Theatre, where Liza is doing a one-woman show through Jan. 4. For one thing, she looks a lot better on a theater stage than she does under the close scrutiny of TV cameras - sleeker, steadier, slimmer. The spangly pantsuits flatter her. She sounded better too, at least when the hand mike was in its proper place and she wasn't being drowned out by the 12-piece orchestra, larger than that for many Broadway musicals...
...never about musicality so much as it is about the psychodrama of watching show biz's most famous high-wire act try to make it to curtain call without a visit from the EMS unit. Even the minimal choreography - lots of arm thrusts and quick marches across the stage - seems to wear her out. In between songs, she gasps for air and grabs for her bottle of Gatorade as if she were an NFL cornerback returning to the bench after a 60-yard interception return. Halfway through the 2 1/2-hr. concert, she pulls out a chair and plops down into...
...this for an Agatha Christie plotline: performing on stage inside Vienna's Burgtheater, one of Europe's oldest and grandest, an actor takes a knife to his throat in his character's desperate attempt at suicide. As audience applause fills the opulent theater, blood pours from the actor's neck. But something's not right. Buckling and staggering his way off stage, the actor collapses to the floor. That's because the knife, and the harm that it's done, are both tragically real...
Sometime past midnight at London's Crystal Night Club, the lights dim and the DJ drops a mellow beat. Right on cue, Julia Theresa Heller, a leggy 19-year old, struts across the stage in her bid to become Miss King's College 2008. "I'm originally from Germany and I love chocolate," she says to the judges, flashing a toothy smile as blinding as her blonde locks. "Just like me it's sweet, and definitely bad for you." When asked by the emcee to describe the superpower she'd most like to possess, Heller, a business management student, doesn...
...preliminary events have now been decided, but this ugly row over beauty will doubtlessly continue. For now, some may take solace in the crowning of Tia Roberts, a third year law student, as Miss King's 2008. On stage, she spoke of her ambitions to become a human rights lawyer, made references to the works of Jane Austen and dispelled myths about her Thai background. "Before you ask," Roberts told the judges, "I'm not a ladyboy or a mail-order bride." In that sense, the pageant just might have slayed some stereotypes after...