In the far north of Arizona, in the remote settlement of Short Creek in front of a red rock, the prophet Warren Jeffs sent his polygamous congregation. The 2002 Olympic Games were to be held in Salt Lake City, in the Mormon holy land of Utah. For the FLDS, the fundamentalist offshoot of the great Mormon Church, which Jeffs still leads out of prison to this day, that meant once again: the end of the world. Rescue available only to the chosen ones in Short Creek. So the families, with their many wives and children, moved to the prairies where the Prophet could control them well. The documentary series “Be kind – pray and obey” on Netflix impressively shows how the community is increasingly sealing itself off from the modern world. And how despotic Jeffs, who himself married around 80 women, could rule over them in the middle of the USA, forced minors into marriage and abused them. Aurelie von Blazekovic
“Shakespeare: Hamlet”. Directed by Peter Brook
Appreciative focus on outstanding actors, here: Adrian Lester as Hamlet. Arte shows Peter Brook’s production.
(Photo: Father Victor)
A young man, mentally beside himself with anger, bitterness and sadness. And yet completely with himself, admirably controlled in his words, his facial expressions, his actions. How Adrian Lester played Hamlet in Paris a good 20 years ago, at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, is still fascinating. Peter Brook directed the Shakespearean drama and also filmed a television version of its English-language performance for Arte. The broadcaster is now showing them again in his on the occasion of Brooks’ death media library. The special two and a quarter hour (and German subtitles) evening of theater is accessible up to and including August 5th.
This “Hamlet” is an example of what has made Brook a globally significant theater creator: his concentration on the essentials, his seriousness in dealing with language and his appreciative focus on the – outstanding – actors. In his programmatic writing “The Empty Space” he broke theater down to its core: Any empty space could become a stage. If someone walks through this room and someone else watches him, that is all that is necessary for a theatrical action. Conversely, this means: There are no distractions at Brook, no illusion. It’s entirely up to the actors that you believe their characters, that you allow yourself to be touched by their fates. The actors, in turn, trust their director, Peter Brook, to take this risk.
On the surface, Brook raged in this “Hamlet” like the wildest berserkers of director’s theater: he threw a lot of text and a number of characters out of the play. But not to bend it to fit your own agenda. Brook just cut out anything distracting from Hamlet. This character has his full attention: a man of integrity who is supposed to restore order in a morally degenerate society. Which can only be achieved through murder. In order to achieve his goal, Hamlet would have to do what he believes to be the basic evil. An irresolvable dichotomy, which Adrian Lester nuanced and subtly exhibits, avoiding anything striking. Stephen Fisher
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Schadenfreude
After his Prime Ministership, so soon, it will be remembered that Boris Johnson is human, that he cannot do anything about all of this – Brexit, abuse, feudal Covid politics – insofar as he is only a victim of his own socialization and that it’s not good for people to grow up overprivileged. But for now, it’s nice to watch someone who’s difficult to anthropomorphize being humiliated with every trick in the book. This can be seen particularly well in the last hearing before the Liaison Committee on Youtube. Highlights: When Johnson admits secretly dating ex-KGB agents. Or when he has to prove that he can calculate what equals 148 plus 32. And then the sentence: “I have great respect for the office of Prime Minister, but I’m afraid I’ve lost all respect for you.” Gorgeous. Nele Pollatschek
Self Empowerment Anthem
An accidental discovery, but what a discovery: the song by singer Frally, “This Is What It Feels Like,” runs in the back of the very disturbing Sky documentary “Phoenix Rising,” in which actress Evan Rachel Wood abused singer Marilyn Manson and allegations of rape. And not just her. Lots of women are doing it now – the ghastly stories are extremely alike. So, admittedly, one is a bit emotionally spurred on, and now these hangover strings blow in, the choirs, this submarine-threatening sub-bass and the boilery drums. And then this text: “Slow down you’re on the run / We are many, you are one”. We are many. You’re alone. And that’s how it feels. This is what it feels like. Crazy power, the whole thing. Haven’t experienced such a perfectly set pop moment in a long time. Jacob Biazza
Museum of Modern Art in Ceret
The Musee d’Art Moderne de Ceret, in Ceret, southern France.
(Photo: Knut Knipser/picture alliance / imageBROKER)
Contrary to what its name might suggest, the Palace of the Kings of Mallorca is located in Perpignan in southern France, which was the capital of the Kingdom of Mallorca for a few decades in the Middle Ages. The palace is defiantly unwelcoming and almost entirely empty. All the more surprising was a small show of paintings by Jean Capdeville (1917-2011) in the old chancellery. He liked to paint abstractly. Black dominates on white backgrounds, and the broadly applied colors are all the more powerful: green, yellow, blue, red. The paintings are unmistakable reflections of the landscape around Perpignan, the center of Roussillon, French Catalonia, in which one can see the Catalan flag waving almost everywhere, whose bright red-orange stripes would by no means be a foreign element in Capdeville’s pictures.
From the barbican of the palace, the view goes over the whole of Roussillon. A lush, dark green dominates both the nearby Pyrenees, gently gliding into the ultramarine blue Mediterranean Sea, and the slopes of the Pic du Canigou, the sacred mountain of the Catalans, which dominates the region. The Roussilon is a festival of colors that has been attracting artists for over 100 years. By the sea in Collioure, Henri Matisse was inspired by the colors of Roussillon (the sunrises and sunsets are a burgundy that covers the whole area) for Fauvism, in Céret below the Canigou Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso promoted Cubism from 1911 . All of this is within 30 kilometers of the Palace of Perpignan.
Both Collioure and Céret have small museums, the latter is housed in the town’s former prison and has just had a new wing added. In the reopened house there are mainly works that were donated to the house, by Pablo Picasso or Henri Matisse. Painters kept coming to Céret, the colors here are just as intense as Collioure, but more complex and brittle than there. Marc Chagall was there, Chaim Soutine, Aristide Maillol, Joan Miró and even Salvador Dalí, who pulled off a huge nonsense performance here. All have given works to the house. All this is shown in this grandiose museum, in the contemporary collection of which the visitor meets again Jean Capdeville, who lived a long time in Céret, died there, and whose black shines much more powerfully and deathly here near the Canigou than in the royal palace of Perpignan. Reinhard J Brembeck