 ‘Timing’ is everything
The second production of the University Theatre season will be All in the Timing, David Ives’s collection of six short pieces, opening in the Cellar Theater Nov. 11.
All in the Timing captivates and entertains by combining a mind-stimulating exploration into the nature of language with a pumping, comic heart. Ives demonstrates both that our speech is often an inadequate means by which to express our thoughts and desires and that it is, in the end, our only real hope. We must work with what we’ve got--however embarrassing, heartbreaking or frustrating it may be--and hope that we can get the timing right.
But until that timing is fine-tuned, why not laugh at the misconnections and crossed wires that language creates? Coffee-shop dating games, chimpanzees trying to write Shakespeare, the anti-Stalinist Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky and minimalist composer Philip Glass--Ives finds the hilarity of linguistic permutations, and their effect on the human condition, everywhere.
In one segment of All in the Timing, nonsense words suddenly make perfect sense; in another, characters must ask for the opposite of what they want. Humans eventually do connect, despite the roadblocks of language. Talkative chimps will eventually write Hamlet. And “that,” as Trotsky says, “gives you a little hope about the world, doesn’t it?”
Critics describe these plays as enchanting and perplexing, incisively intelligent and side-splittingly funny. The New Criterion called All in the Timing “a fresh, salty offshore breeze after a humid August day.” The New York Times said, “The writing is not only very funny, it has the density of thought and the precision of poetry.”
All in the Timing will be presented Nov. 11-14, Nov. 17-20 and Dec. 1-5 at 8 p.m. Matinee performances are scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Nov. 15 and 22. Tickets are $10 ($7 students). The box office (542-2838) is open from noon to 5 p.m. weekdays and one hour before every performance.
-- Jessica Maerz
 “The Religion of the Future,”
Frederick Turner. 4 p.m. 265 Park Hall. Sponsored by Center for Humanities and Arts. 542-3966.
Scholar, poet, environmental activist and cultural critic, Turner is Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas and visiting scholar in comparative literature at UGA this week. He has recently turned his attention to ecology and serves as adviser to the Society for Ecological Restoration. He is the recipient of the Milan Fust Prize, the Levinson Poetry Prize (awarded by Poetry), the Missouri Review essay prize, the Benjamin Franklin Book Award and an Emmy.
Long Walks in the Afternoon
Margaret Gibson. 4:30 p.m. Room B-2 main library. Sponsored by the English department, the creative writing program, the Georgia Review, the UGA libraries and the Women’s Studies Program. 542-3481.
Gibson, the author of five highly regarded collections of poems, will read from her work in the presentation at 4:30. Earlier in the day, from 1:30 to 2:15 p.m., she will conduct a question-and-answer session in 261 Park Hall. Both events are open to the public and free.
Winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize for Long Walks in the Afternoon (1982) and a finalist for the National Book Award for The Vigil (1993), Gibson is most centrally concerned with exploring women’s sensibilities, the large and small grandeurs of the natural world and the importance of various kinds of spirituality in human life. She teaches at the University of Connecticut.
Environmental Ethics Symposium.
“Is Urban Sprawl Bad?”
Arthur C. Nelson, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Frederick Steiner, Arizona State University. 2-4 p.m. Reception Hall, Tate Student Center. Sponsored by Center for Humanities and Arts.
Each of the participants in this year’s symposium will begin with a 10-minute illustrated presentation. They will then discuss urban sprawl with each other and with the audience.
Steiner is an expert in ecological planning and author of numerous publications, most recently To Heal the Earth. He is the recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, the President’s Citation from the Soil and Water Conservation Society and two national awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects. Nelson, who holds joint appointments in the colleges of management and engineering at Georgia Tech, specializes in farm and forest preservation, urban containment and the relationship between metropolitan governance structures and economic development. He is the author of several books.
The discussion will be moderated by Richard Westmacott of environmental design.
 Assad Brothers, classical guitar. $20 and $24. 8 p.m. Hodgson Hall, Performing Arts Center.
542-4400.
Recognized across the globe for their technical virtuosity, uncanny precision and musical and stylistic sensitivity, Sergio and Odair Assad are considered the foremost guitar-duo team in the world. The Brazilian-born brothers have been credited with “double-handedly” reviving contemporary music for the guitar. Among the many composers who have dedicated pieces to the Assads are Brazilians Radames Gnattali, Marlos Nobre, Edino Krieger and Francisco Mignone; Russian Nikita Koshkin; Argentinean Astor Piazzola; Frenchman Roland Dyens; Cuban Leo Brouwer; and American Terry Riley.
The Assad brothers have over a dozen recordings to their credit, including recent collaborations with such internationally renowned artists as Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. They regularly perform in recital and with orchestras throughout Europe, Latin America and Asia.
Born in Sao Paulo into a musical family, Sergio and Odair studied with Monina Tavora, a student of Andres Segovia. Their shared musical education and experience have given them a remarkable unified sound.
A free pre-concert lecture will be given by John Sutherland, guitarist in UGA’s School of Music, at 7:15 p.m. in Ramsey Hall.
La Traviata. $28 and $32. 7:30 p.m. Hodgson Hall.
542-4400.
 Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata is set in and around Paris in the 1890s and is based on Alexandre Dumas’s La Dame aux camélias, with libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. The opera tells the tragic love story of Violetta, a beautiful Parisian socialite, and the sacrifices she makes for her beloved Alfredo.
This performance by the San Francisco Western Opera Theater will be a concert version, with the Western Opera Theater Orchestra onstage behind the singers. It will be sung in Italian with English supertitles projected above the stage. The conductor will be Joseph Colaneri, who has conducted more than 60 performances for the New York City Opera and was chorus master for City Opera’s Grammy Award-winning recording of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide.
Western Opera Theater was founded 31 years ago with the first opera touring grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
A pre-concert lecture will be given by M.A. Barnes, writer for the Athens Daily News/Banner-Herald. The lecture begins at 6:45 p.m. in Ramsey Hall and is free and open to the public.
|
|
|
