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| Linklog: Jane Austen as moral guide, Stieg Larsson as investment, and more What would Jane Austen do? Be surprised, quite probably, at her continued status as a moral guide. (Via.) No advice on zombies.• Hugh MacDiarmid vs the spell-checker.• "A toothpick pretending to be a tree": James Marcus on The Original of Laura.• Bookride on Stieg Larsson's second-hand prospects.• Competitive speed-reading with Jenny Davidson.• Culture and life expectancy.Peter Robinsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
The Road: a world exclusive look at the UK trailer John Hillcoat's acclaimed adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's apocalyptic novel, starring Viggo Mortensen, hits the UK on 8 January. The distributors have recut the trailer for British eyes – compare and contrast with the original and tell us what you think feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Bookshelf | Photo Collections: The City in Pictures, and in Lists “New York Sleeps” and “Only in New York: Photographs From Look Magazine” are worth considering as holiday gifts for lovers of the city. feeds.nytimes.com |
Crime: Blood Ties Mystery novels by Charles Todd, Steve Hamilton, Betty Webb and Andrea Camilleri. feeds.nytimes.com |
Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schrieber sail through on Broadway Hollywood comes to the Brooklyn docks with Johansson and Schrieber in Gregory Mosher's revival of A View from the Bridge, but the production fails to pack a punch, writes Alexis SoloskiAmerica: land of the free, home of the abiding recession, the weakened dollar, and an unemployment rate hovering near 10%. Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge takes place in a more prosperous era – the postwar boom of the 1950s. Yet the latest Broadway revival, directed by Gregory Mosher, seems to have absorbed some of the current economic malaise. The scenery looks to have been constructed out ofcrispbread; the lights operate at low-wattage; the cast, which includes Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson, labour vigorously for middling returns. At one point, Rodolpho (Morgan Spector), a newly arrived immigrant, declares expansively, "I want to be an American so I can work!" Yet this show finds everyone underemployed.Miller recounts in his autobiography that he received the inspiration for this 1955 play from a longshoreman working on the Brooklyn docks, who reported a tale of an acquintance "who had ratted to the Immigration Bureau, on two brothers, his own relatives, who were living illegally in his very home, in order to break an engagement between one of them and his niece." Miller took this simple, rather shabby story and gave it the form and tragic inevitability of Greek drama. Dockworker Eddie Carbone (Schreiber) harbors potent feelings toward his niece, Catherine (Johansson). When she begins a relationship with her Italian cousin Rodolpho, Eddie risks his name and his reputation by informing on Rodolpho and his brother. Nemesis descends.Despite these resonances, the neighbourhood attorney Alfieri, played by Michael Cristofer, assures the audience that "this is Red Hook, not Sicily," and that its inhabitants "are quite civilized, quite American. Now we settle for half, and I like it better." Mosher appears to take Alfieri at his word, offering a lucid, no-nonsense version of the script that somehow doesn't give its all. It moves rapidly from scene to scene (though one wishes he didn't so often rely on tacky rotating scenery to get from one to the next), and checks actorly tendencies toward indulgence. Yet Mosher harnesses little of the show's power.One shouldn't fault Schreiber, who lends Eddie a lumbering sensuality, and portrays a man beset by emotions he can't acknowledge or articulate. He's best in his most physical scenes, channeling his malice and despair into violence. He's ably supported by Jessica Hecht, as his careworn wife, and by the grainy voiced Cristofer as his ineffectual adviser. Johansson, who sports tight sweaters and nipped-waist dresses, toils to master her character's speech and posture, ably capturing the flat tones and "wavy walk" of a working-class girl advancing on womanhood. But she never quite conveys Catherine's ambivalence and distress. Too often her face falls into a kind of repose, open-mouthed and a bit blank, which might seem revealing on film, but is ineffectual onstage. As her lover, Spector – a replacement for an actor, Santino Fontana injured in previews – also displays a varying command of his role, never quite at home in his Italian accent or dyed-blond locks.In his introduction, Miller assures us "that the play does not attempt to swamp an audience in tears," but it seems unlikely that this revival, a bit drab and disengaging, should conjure even a sniffle.BroadwayTheatreScarlett JohanssonArthur MillerArthur MillerAlexis Soloskiguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |