My friend H is visiting from Japan, so it's going to be a week of culture! Today we saw two things which you really need to experience first hand. The first was the enormous show of sculptures by Picasso at MoMA, the second was a long play at H's favorite New York theater, Barrow Street.
That you have to be in a space with sculpture goes without saying. That theater works because you're sharing a space (and time) with the actors is less obvious but no less true. "The Flick" is over three hours in the same unchanging set - a rundown art house movie theater, whose staff are the characters. Nothing much happens, and much of that is silence. But the experience is almost unbearably powerful... I was reminded of Grotowski's understanding of the essence of live theater: the audience is transformed because the actors sacrifice their bodies.
