A resurrection story that offers a significant contribution to the history of American popular theater.
A veteran music critic and historian excavates the long-buried story of the signal contributions made to the original staged production of Porgy and Bess by director Rouben Mamoulian (1897–1987).
Horowitz (Moral Fire: Musical Portraits from American’s Fin de Siècle, 2012, etc.) has more than one entree on his narrative plate. Throughout, he reminds us of the condescension that many in “high” music culture displayed toward Gershwin, and he reprints a number of comments from reviews of Porgy and Bess (and of other Gershwin works) that demonstrate a reluctance to take him seriously. Gershwin’s story is prominent, but the author has done his greatest service by escorting Mamoulian back out onto the stage and celebrating his many accomplishments as a stage and film director. But Horowitz begins with his own “epiphany” about Gershwin. He had adopted the received opinions about the composer, but then, later, he began identifying almost Wagnerian aspects of his composition, and his opinion escalated. The author then tells the story of the original 1925 novella Porgy by DuBose Heyward. He explains how Heyward and his wife converted it into a stage play and how Mamoulian altered the script, directed the play and became, for a while, a star himself. Horowitz emphasizes Mamoulian’s ferocious planning for a production—every movement, rhythm, sound, silence and shadow. And we see, too, how his casts deeply respected and cared for him. Mamoulian went out to Hollywood, and the author talks about each of his films and writes almost in celebration of Love Me Tonight (1932). He carefully describes Mamoulian’s contributions to Porgy and Bess and his subsequent success directing the original productions of Oklahoma! and Carousel. He was hired to direct the film of Porgy and Bess, but all fell apart—as did Mamoulian’s career.
A resurrection story that offers a significant contribution to the history of American popular theater.Pub Date: July 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-393-24013-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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