Wow Michael

I'm getting goose bumps all-over. Michael really gets it, the right rhythm, the right pace, the right pause. Simply marvellous.

True Happiness

"...I'm also of the opinion that true happiness is impossible without idleness. My ideal is to be completely idle and love a fat girl. I'd like life to flash by brilliantly, because I know life is short. I'd like to sit on a boatdeck and pop bottles of champagne, and in the evenings, women. I'd like to go to Chicago and India and Constantinople, and so on and so forth..."

Are You There, Crocodile? Inventing Anton Chekhov by Michael Pennington. Now go and buy it or even better attend a performance! Or read  something about it on the official homepage. It used to be possible to book performances there.

Art Is An Essential Need

"... I took refuge in this peasant's hut, by which time it was already light and there were golden tones in the sky and the heathcock was calling. I fell asleep for a time and dreamed of my own bed in my own room: I dreamed I was sitting at my own table and telling my friends how I was nearly killed by a carriage on the Siberian highway. Then I woke and realised where I was. I had a good look around: it's quite charming. The peasant and his wife have decorated their walls with sweet wrappers and vodka labels, and someone's painted a tree on the door growing out of a vase, and some red flowers, and birds that look more like fish. The demand for art is here, but the good Lord has sent no artists. How can a peasant think about art? For nine months of the year he can't even take off his mittens and straighten his fingers, and when the summer comes his back aches with labour.
My first visitor was grandpa, very interested in me.

-Are you from Russia, your Honour?

-Yes, that's right, from Russia.

.....

-It's a crying shame because a Siberian's a good man. He's soft-hearted and honest and he doesn't drink - he's a treasure, not a man, but his life is wasting, like a mosquito, shall we say, or a fly. What's he living for, your Honour?

-Well, I suppose he works and eats and clothes himself. What more does a man want?

-Your Honour. A human being is not a horse."

(from Michael Pennington's  one-man-show on Anton Chekhov taken from Are You There, Crocodile? - Inventing Anton Chekhov by Michael Pennington - If you ever have the opportunity to watch it, surely do it ;) )

The R-Word - It's All About Reputation, Baby

Sometimes, while I was still studying, I've come across people, who have been cherishing an idea, a concept, a work of art for  a long time and have told me about it, but then when it came to finally realising it, they sort of backed down. One might of course conclude that there were some financial aspects troubling these projects, but nothing was further from truth. So I discussed my findings with fellow students and they answered: "It is all very well for you as a student to try to realize these sometimes daring projects, but they are professors and artists they have a reputation to lose."
Later on exactly this word "reputation" was also featuring in a book on some daring theatrical project
I've benefitted from, for I was lucky enough to attend a performance: The ESC "The Wars of the Roses", a staging of the Shakespearean history plays from Richard II to Richard III, all done in a row and sometimes at just one weekend, which they toured around the world. Here the word "reputation" almost killed the whole project at the beginning because institutions that wanted to support this effort were reminded that this just might endanger their reputation.
Thus I've come to learn that this tiny word is the obstacle to many a wonderful and daring work of art, and yet again the true artist reveals himself in exactly this moment, for he or she would not bother about his or her reputation at all and just skip it.
So thanks to all you lovely artists who don't give a damn about their public image and just daringly do whatever they feel compelled to.

Spur - Trace(s)

Die Spur (auf)spüren...Und dabei be-greifen...Being the "man with ink on his fingers"

Phantasmagoria - your benevolent sky and likewise smile

Deep within the heart of me I will always prefer those comedies and comedians that know that best comedy is achieved by playing desperately on the tragic potential of its issue, and those tragedies and tragic actors that also work out the silly aspects that often bring about the tragic ending...

 

Amateurish

Yesterday I've come across a review of Damien Hirst paintings and the reviewer described them as being amateurish. Although I must admit that I was also slightly underwhelmed by the paintings - because in my eyes they were too academic btw - I did not like this approach a lot, for this word "amateur" stems from the Latin "amator", which means paramour. What annoyed me was the reviewer's depreciative use of this word, for if you love something or doing something for the love of it, your heart and soul is involved, and I cannot picture that paintings made with heart and soul can be depreciated. If anything nowadays paintings are regretfully lacking this characteristic - as can be seen from my reaction to the same paintings-, thus what I am craving for is more "amateurish" art.

For whom it may concern Michael Pennington will play Antony in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, co-starring Kim Catrall, in Chichester in September. I at least do feel the urge to go there ;).

Without comment

What a man, what a mighty good man

Finally Michael Pennington's book "Sweet William" will be released in February 2012, details here, and I fully agree with Ian McKellen's view, though there is some more to be added. Indeed Michael Pennington is both a great Shakespearian actor and an equally good scholar, but what McKellen does not mention is that Michael Pennington has got a wonderful sense for music and rhythm, which make eevery of his performances a joy to watch and listen to. Just take his Richard II:

My comment from way back still stands the test of time/rewatching:
Thanks a lot ShakespeareAndMore for uploading this wonderful performance. Brilliantly delivered indeed, how he grasps the idea of circular movements here, from king to beggar and back again, the wheel of fortune, from nothing to nothing, the circular movement of the clock. Poor king who has just his own sorrow and person to circle around. I could watch Michael Pennington for hours and hours.

On January 12th Michael Pennington will be performing his one-man-show at the National Theater in London and signing books afterwards!

Art=Sublimation or The Sublime Is Now (Barnett Newman)

I still write a little every day: only a little, but I do write. And then in the evenings Levitan might come knocking at my window - 'Are you there, crocodile?' - and I let him in and we talk. He has terrible fits of melancholy these days, but if I tell him a funny story he rolls on the floor with pleasure and kicks his feet in the air. But his work is deteriorating: he no longer paints with a feeling of youth, but with a sort of bravura. I think the women have worn him out. It's impossible to paint a landscape without a feeling of pathos, of ecstasy, and ecstasy is impossible when you've gorged yourself. If I were a landsacpe artist I'd live quite an ascetic life: I'd have intercourse once in a year, and I'd eat once a day.   Anton Checkhov, as quoted by the lovely Michael Pennington in his play "Anton Checkhov", cf Are You There Crocodile?-Inventing Anton Checkhov" by Michael Pennington, p 269.

To all you Michael Pennington Aficionados

Here there is a wonderful interview with Michael about The Syndicate, Eduardo de Fillipo, acting and training as an actor - and in the final sentences he mentions something that gets me very excited indeed, oh I wish so much for it to happen, King Lear! Enjoy

Michael Pennington on Richard Strauss

Just listen on Thursday 21st of April at 11:30 WEST  and hopefully on BBC iplayer for a week afterwards.

Wat is kunst? - de blik in haar ogen dat is kunst - Was ist Kunst?

How strangely things turn out to be sometimes. While I was still lamenting a great loss, exactly this loss resulted in me unexpectedly getting an answer to a question I had been posing to Raimund Stecker - in fact the very person, who made me first aware of the problem. Raimund mentioned that to his mind there are basically two kinds of art, first at all the art that is concerned with art history, wanting to enhance it somehow, and then there is art that is authentic. Since I never ever believed in progress, lol, I was very anxious to find out about authenticity. How and when are you authentic? I certainly did pose the question to Raimund, but never got an answer.

Yet a year ago, having one of my paintings in his hands and  noticing that I was more than upset to learn that one of my drawings got lost in the mail, M P stated to somebody else  - translating my feelings to her - that I can never ever do the drawing again. Now I know what authentic implies and I'm more than grateful to him for letting me know.

Shakespeare's Spectres

Some time ago I read about a documentary entitled "Battle of Wills" and being intrigued - and definitely wanting to watch the movie - I contacted an email address that I've also come across . I was astonished to learn that in fact I was communicating with its director Anne Henderson ...

Anne was very servicable and sent me a copy....

And what shall I say?! She has directed a very subtle documentary, that at once manages to enlight several layers of one story. The most important one is one man's, Lloyd Sullivan's, battle to establish the "scientific" proof that a portrait, known as the Sanders portrait, that he had inherited, was in fact representing Shakespeare. Yet there is much more to be learned here and this is how art nowadays has become a commercial product like any other and that by those objective scientific proofs a lot of money can be gained and lost, depending on the outcome. Furthermore on yet another level national resentiment and pride gets involved when Sanders portrait challenges by its existence the authenticity of the National Portrait Gallery's own Chandos portrait, for Lloyd Sullivan's family had moved to Canada. Revealing how the representatives of the British institution save themselves by repeating tautologies like a mantra, without giving any substantial reason, they are merely saying that the Sanders portrait cannot be Shakespeare because it cannot be :-). First when I had watched only the first 16 minutes of the movie I was reminded of another battle I had been reading about, one of ideologies, between Martin Heidegger and Meyer Shapiro. In this case Jacques Derrida stated that the actual issue of their feud, The Pair of Shoes by Vincent Van Gogh and also Van Gogh himself had become a revenant, a spectre, a ghost in the process...

At this point I would suggest for anybody, having become interested by this post and the mysterious smile of the man in the Sanders portrait, represented on the scan accompanying this uttering, to use the following link http://www.informactionfilms.com/en/productions/battle-of-wills.php and order a copy. It "stars" also  people like  Joseph Fiennes, Simon Callow, Gregory Doran and Michael Pennington.

Bonne chance to Lloyd Sullivan and Anne Henderson, and this about tells where my personal sympathies lie...

Restoring Chekhov's House

For all you Michael Pennington admirers out there, who might also fancy his cause to save Chekhov's White Dacha in Yalta, you can download his account of his journey there in the autumn of 2009 on this website http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bydesign/ . Scroll down to the podcast of the edition of Wednesday 26 January  2011, there is a small trick as you cannot download the singular item - due to copyright restrictions -, but if you listen to the entire show, it is yet included ;-) ( and it may also be downloaded, shhhh!! ). To accompany the sound there are some photographs of the event on this site http://www.yalta.chekhov.com.ua/start_r.php4 , scroll down to the post dated 4.11.2009 15:50. Enjoy! 

PS :And please remember to donate some money for this certainly worthwhile cause http://www.yaltachekhov.org/help.html !!!

Michael Pennington on Russian productions of Chekhov

For the next seven days available on BBC iPlayer, a discussion with Paul Allain and Michael Pennington on Russian productions of Chekhov and the differences between Russian and British theatre: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xnbjt

Added January 31st: This is the final day it will be on the BBC iPlayer!!! Just 13 hours left!!

My lovely Karfunkel - Mea Culpa

Which like a jewel hung in ghastly night
Makes black night beauteous ...

Having now read for the felt 100th time that Michael Pennington is an "intellectual" actor, I feel like sternly denying it. At this moment I'm also grateful that not too many people actually read this, so my sense of embarrassment and shame of what I'm about to publicise here, makes me not quit, though I feel a great urge to. I also sincerely hope that Mary has already passed this, or something that comes down to this effect, on to the person originally concerned. Michael Pennington is an actor with a great intellect, which means that at any time he conveys the sense that he perfectly understands every facet of the text he is reciting/ enacting. Like a wonderful jewel, a Karfunkel, in his hands. Yet the content of what is enacted is not a solely  intellectual one at all, but something deeply felt and enlightened/ enlightening.

I'm so infinitely sorry, aber das mußte einmal gesagt werden.

Kann denn Liebe Sünde sein? - To dance the Flamenco or the Tango

The first thing that came to my mind when the performance Love is My Sin began, was that both the garments worn by Michael Pennington and Natasha Parry and the way they moved were suggesting that this would be a highly ritualized, stylized, yet completely passionate dance we would be witnessing, like a Flamenco or a Tango, something that comes quite close to the actual act, simply because the surface is so slight. Probably Condillac's veils shining through again. And the hell it was...

 

The other thing that had been worrying me the day before, which seems pointless here, yet was resolved. I actually was worried if I could combine black stockings and a dark blue dress, and was astonished that Michael Pennington was wearing the same combination ;-)

Added on January 18th, maybe it is a salsa after all as suggested by Triggerfinger in Studio Brussel's new Hot Shot for this week, "Love Lost In Love"!

Eine sicherlich überfällige Bemerkung

Dies ist bewußt auf Deutsch geschrieben und richtet sich an die deutschsprachigen Verehrer der Kunst von Michael Pennington - eigentlich wollte ich viel einfacher und nicht so geschwollen klingen, aber sei's d'rum! Ich möchte  allen Leuten, die sich für Michael interessieren Mary Hunwicks' Website empfehlen http://www.hunwicks.ndo.co.uk/index.html , dort erfährt man fast alles über ihn. Weiterhin, um auf dem laufenden gehalten zu werden, lohnt es sich mittlerweile wirklich, sich in die Mailinglist http://www.hunwicks.ndo.co.uk/contact.html einzutragen, nach leichten Startschwierigkeiten ist der Informationsfluß hervorragend. Ansonsten würde es mich unendlich freuen von anderen Leuten zu hören, die von seiner Kunst berührt wurden.

PS:  Wenn ich Zeit und von irgendjemandem dort draußen Ansporn habe, könnte ich mir vorstellen eine  Lobhudelei auf Michael zu schreiben. Also ich bitte dringenst um Kommentare - egal in welcher Sprache, ich selber verstehe Deutsch, Englisch und Niederländisch, rudimentär Französisch, und Russisch kann ich wenigstens ansatzweise entziffern, aber es gibt ja auch noch Online-Übersetzer ...

What, in fact, was the true beginning of my end?!