Reading every day about people losing jobs as a result of the global economic crisis can get frustrating. But what if it is a play about people prepared to do any number of unethical, illegal acts from lies and threats to bribery and burglary to prevent losing their job? And what if it is a play awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1984? Interested? The English-language theatre company the Prague Playhouse presents the American drama Glengarry Glen Ross written by David Mamet and directed by Brian Caspe. This classic play will come to a Prague audience for the first time at Divadlo Inspirace on January 29, 30, 31 and February 4, 5, 6 at 7:30pm.
If you like gypsy music, you are lucky to be in Prague tonight. Rock Café will have two very good ensembles from Hungary, Parno Graszt and CimbaliBand. Parno Graszt is returning to Prague after a very successful show in July. Nine members of the band will show what real gypsy music is about in a vibrant performance full of singing, guitars, wooden spoons, an accordion, electric tamboura and dancing. They will make you dance too. A Hungarian cembalo band Cimbaliband will help you warm up in the first half of the evening.
Another entertaining show takes place tonight at Palác Akropolis. The recently formed Moravia-based Burana Orffchester enjoys mixing many different music styles from traditional Moravian or Balkan folk to Gypsy music, bigbeat or klezmer. The band’s maestro calls their style a circus. So Akropolis or Rock Café? Whichever you choose, be ready to swing you hips.
If you like American football or poetry, you may want to reserve a chair at Globe Café in Pštrossova on the first two days in February. Sunday night will be the Super Bowl night with Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals fighting for the NFL title. The live broadcast starts 20 minutes past midnight, but the party starts at 10pm. Half-time entertainment will feature Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
The following night on Monday, poet David E. Oprava will be the guests at Globe’s Alchemy reading. David will approach the audience with his project whose aim is to create fifty individual poems that will represent each of the American states. David hopes “to distill a unique and informed essence of what it means to be America, and ultimately, what America is in terms of a home, a nation, a state, an ideal, and a reality.” Are you familiar with this? Do you have anything to say? Don’t miss the opening at 7:30pm.
The Rudolfinum gallery will host from 29 January until 5 April a collection of twenty experimental films created by Andy Warhol in the 1960s. The exhibition entitled Andy Warhol – Motion Pictures features a parade of Warhol’s friends, actors and models in short screen tests as well as the artist’s silent films such as Eat, Sleep, Kiss and Blow Job. It may be interesting to see poet John Giorno in various positions of sleep or close-up sequences of a couple kissing. How long do you think you’ll last watching the Empire State Building, filmed from night to morning on June 2, 1964, from the 41st floor of the Time-Life Building? This large-screen projection of Warhol’s films has been prepared in cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
Pass the Popcorn
Today and tomorrow is your last chance to see a Japanese films at Lucerna. The Eigasai 2009 film festival of contemporary Japanese film will close in two days and movies to see are Turn over – An angel is coming on a bicycle (Wed 6:30pm) and The Twilight Samurai (Thu 6:30pm).
Other than that, we have two Oscar nominees and a nature documentary coming to Czech theatres this week.
Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road has won so many awards so far that even if you did not follow the movie reviews you must have heard about it. The film tells the story of a young couple struggling to make a happy living in a Connecticut suburb in the 1950s. The couple is Frank and April, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. They are both so good in the movie that they even stop being actors and become the people you or your parents grew up with. The film is based on a novel by Richard Yates.
David Fincher’s latest release, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is a big competition for Revolutionary Road in their battle for Academy Awards. The film based on Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, is about Benjamin Button, a man who was born old but got younger with time. Brad Pitt had to undergo much makeup time, create body language and perform physically to portray the different ages of a man.
The French nature documentary Animals in Love saw its Czech premiere at the recent festival of French film. Now it goes nationwide. Filmed in 16 countries, the film by Laurent Charbonnier features over 80 different species practicing their mating rituals set to the music of renowned American composer Philip Glass.
Kateřina Heilmannis a staff writer and translator at the Monitor. She
likes writing about cycling and culture.
You can reach her at [email protected]
