The Star Online: Lifestyle: Arts & Fashion

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Kenneth Branagh to make NYC stage debut with 'Macbeth'.

British actor Kenneth Branagh will make his New York stage debut next June when he brings his acclaimed take on William Shakespeare's Macbeth to the state.

However, the Oscar-nominee will not be appearing on Broadway. Instead, he plans to stage his version of the "Scottish play" at the Park Avenue Armory.

Joining him in all the palace intrigue will be Alex Kingston (ER) as Lady Macbeth. The pair starred in a critically heralded revival of the dark tragedy that was staged at the Manchester International Festival in Britain this summer. The show was performed at St Peter's Church, with the audience sitting on wooden benches giving them a front row seat to the carnage and elemental forces like rain and fire.

It marked Branagh's first stage performance of a work by the Bard in more than a decade. His return to the playwright who helped make him an international star in films like 1989's Henry V was appreciated.

In the New York Times, Ben Brantley hailed Branagh's take on the role and praised the shows lean and mean pacing.

"Fast, furious and unstoppable, time keeps rushing forward in this Macbeth, knocking the breath out of everyone, audience included," Brantley wrote.

Though theatrical legend holds that Macbeth is cursed – with some actors refusing to even utter its title while inside a theatre – the show has proved enormously popular in recent years.

Alan Cummings recently headlined a one-man take on the play that was well-received and Ethan Hawke is planning to star in a revival this fall. Park Avenue Armory said additional casting and performance dates will be announced in the coming months. — Reuters

In natural light

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Early and rare images of The Beatles on tour in the United States – taken with no flash.

David Mapes loves the photograph in a very "Yesterday" kind of way.

The moody black-and-white image shows Beatles drummer Ringo Starr days after the band's 1964 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, the TV programme where American teenage girls screamed and fainted and welcomed British rock 'n' roll to the United States.

Mapes is an art gallery owner in Taos, New Mexico, and knows a one-of-a-kind work when he sees it.

"It shows Ringo at the Washington Coliseum. He's sitting there dressed in a hat, with a cigarette in his hand, rings on his fingers," says Mapes.

"He's so contemplative. It's just such a natural moment captured on film."

The picture is one of 25 early images of the Fab Four for sale during a month-long exhibition at Mapes' David Anthony Fine Art gallery in Taos. But the story behind the pictures is what sets them apart.

Photographer Mike Mitchell, then just 18, shot them without a flash in the dim light of the Washington arena. The result is a collection filled with ghostly shadows and streaming light, not to mention a rare glimpse of one of pop culture's defining moments.

Mapes tells the story. "Mike was working as a photographer when he found out that the Beatles were coming to town. So he went over to a magazine and finagled press credentials, an unrestricted backstage pass. But he rushed to the show without a flash," the gallery owner said.

"So he made the best of things with his Nikon SP. He was horrified that he was having so much trouble without a flash. He did his best to use any ambient or stage light he could find."

Mitchell remembers how hot it was inside the coliseum. The crowd was deafening but the resonating bass beats were unmistakable. He said the Beatles were "on fire" that night.

Mitchell said his goal was simple. He wanted to make great portraits of the Beatles while discovering a little more about who they really were.

With no flash, he waited for the perfect time to snap the shutter. His photographs immortalised the important details of the moment in a bath of light while the rest faded into darkness. It was the concert that marked the beginning of his fascination with light.

"I think that was the first time in my life that I had to really look more deeply at light and take my cues from what the light was doing," he told the Associated Press. "I learned to sort of feel from the light."

But at the time, the results of his hard work didn't pay off.

"The negatives were so dark they were hard to print with the existing darkroom technology," said Mapes.

They sat in a shoebox for 50 years, he said, until recent advances – and 1,000 hours in front of the computer – changed all that.

"The negatives were digitally scanned and the new process allowed him to print them," said Mapes.

"While he was cleaning them, a friend realised what he had in his hands. He hooked him up with the Christie's auction house. And the rest is history."

The display of the 25 photos, mostly large black-and-white prints, will represent the first time the works have been exhibited since their 2011 unveiling at a Christie's auction in New York. The top price was US$68,500 (RM205,500). Mapes' versions will sell for between US$2,000 (RM6,000) and US$24,000 (RM72,000) he said.

Mapes said one photograph of the four band members, their backs to the camera with a thin ribbon of light outlining their silhouettes, made him tear up.

"It brought back memories of that time," he said. "I was a teenager and it was so much about love and everything was optimistic feeling." – Los Angeles Times/ McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Jumaat, 23 Ogos 2013