Individual Reading №1

The Moon and Sixpence. Chapter 1-10

     When the author met Charles Strickland, he was sure that he was an ordinary man. But now nobody would denied his greatness, the time of ridicule had gone. His art amazed you, absorbed your attention. A lot of works had been written about Charles Strickland. 
     The author lived in London when he met Charles for the first time. The narrator moved in the authors’ circle where Rosa Waterford had favorable effect on him and who later acquainted him with Mrs. Strickland.  Mrs. Strickland was married to Charles Strickland who worked as a stockbroker that moment. Mrs. and Mr. Strickland adored one another. 
     The author and Mrs. Strickland quickly became close friends, that’s why he received an invitation to her dinner-party. But during the dinner the narrator had nothing to say and only sat silent. Their family seemed like a shadowiness which you found in people whose lives were parts of social organism so that they existed in it and by it.  
     Much time later the author found out that Mr. Strickland ran away from his wife. Mrs. Strickland said that her husband left her and went to Paris with a woman. A day or two later Mrs. Strickland asked the author to go to Paris and to meet there with her husband. The narrator accepted her offer.

Film review №2

Shakspeare in love.

William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) is on a cold streak. Not only is he writing for Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush), owner of "The Rose," a theatre whose doors are about to be closed by sadistic creditors, but he's got a nasty case of writer's block. Shakespeare hasn't written a hit in years. In fact, he hasn't written much of anything recently. Thus, the Bard finds himself in quite a bind when Henslowe, desperate to stave off another round of hot-coals-to-feet application, stakes The Rose's solvency on Shakespeare's new comedy, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter." The problem is, "Romeo" is safely "locked away" in Shakespeare's head, which is to say that not a word of it is written. Meanwhile, the lovely Lady Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow) is an ardent theatre-goer -- scandalous for a woman of her breeding -- who especially admires Shakespeare's plays and, not incidentally, Bill himself. Alas, she's about to be sold as property into a loveless marriage by her mercenary father and shipped off to a Virginia tobacco plantation. But not before dressing up as a young man and winning the part of Romeo in the embryonic play. Shakespeare soon discovers the deception and goes along with it, using the blossoming love affair to ignite his muse. As William and Viola's romance grows in intensity and spirals towards its inevitable culmination, so, too, does the farcical comedy about Romeo and pirates transform into the timeless tragedy that is Romeo and Juliet.

It's difficult to say about my emotions! It's difficult to stay indifferent to it. You may hate it for its sensuality or  for Shakspeare's thoughts; or you may admire this film as I do. For me, it's very strong, moving, exciting and disturbing film. I advise everybody to watch it!

Rendering №8

     The article named Ignition was published on the site http://www.telegraph.co.uk by Mark Brown on 22 of March. 
     Ignition is the latest show by the National Theatre of Scotland. Ignition (which takes as its starting point the complex relationship between the Shetlanders and the motor car), the show itself is merely the cherry on the cake.
     Director Wils Wilson set herself the immense task of making Ignition available to everyone living on the archipelago. For two months, Lowri Evans hitchhiked her way around the islands in the mythical character of north Shetland’s ghostly White Wife. She talked to people in cars, on buses, on ferries, in their houses and, even, in a care home for the elderly.
     The stories are combined with the Shetlanders’ performance skills, be they in storytelling, music-making or dancing. Fitting all of this into a two-hour show is a bit like trying to shoehorn an elephant into a Morris Minor.
     Ignition provides each audience member with a distinct experience. The author tells us about the moment when he found himself in the back of a derelict car with a storytelling merchant seaman whose painful life experiences are akin to those of his male forebears. He met a travelling garden gnome and its gregarious owner. He heard the poetic reminiscences of older Shetlanders, and saw them juxtaposed with the raucous movement of the local parkour boys.
     In conclusion the author says that what he had experienced was the often emotive culmination of a big-hearted project which has palpably tapped a nerve in its host community.

Rendering 7

    The article named Three Birds, Bush Theatre was published by Dominic Cavendish on the 26 of March. It was published on the site http://www.telegraph.co.uk. 
     The author shares his emotions and thoughts about this play. Three Birds by Janice Okoh, newly transferred from the Manchester Royal Exchange to the Bush in London, and the winner of the 2011 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, the finest, most democratic playwriting competition in the country. 
     The author gives the Congratulations to relative newcomer Okoh for scooping the prize that year, but he also added that he  can’t believe there isn’t someone out there who couldn’t craft a more compelling evening’s entertainment given the times we’re living through.
     The author of this article gives us a brief summary of this play. Set in a South London council flat, Three Birds concerns three black siblings – Tiana, 16, Tionne, 13, and Tanika, nine – whose mother has seemingly flown the nest, leaving her brood to run away with the fairies. An atmosphere of gathering desperation and strangeness prevails as the rankest of smells takes hold – a problem not simply attributable to the fact that bath-time has become a thing of the past. The youngsters’ bickering backchat – which floats just above street-level in terms of sense – is set against the cuckoo interventions of two white characters: a dodgy, manic local fixer called Dr Feelgood and one of the trio’s teachers, Ms Jenkins, who likes to draw children out of themselves using a sock-puppet called Mr Mistoffelees.
     He noticed the disadvantages of this play. There’s a lack of plausibility here that goes beyond the fact that the capable principal actors – Michaela Coel, Jahvel Hall and Susan Wokoma – look way older than the roles they’re playing. 
     As for his opinion I can surely say whether he liked it or not. Because in the end of the article he says «Still, who am I to complain at the show’s shortcomings? If I can do better, I should have a go myself, right? Entries for this year’s comp close in June.»

Rendering №6

The American Plan, Ustinov Studio, Bath

     This article named The American Plan, Ustinov Studio, Bath was published on the site http://www.independent.co.uk  on the 26 of March. It was published by Paul Taylor. 
     From the very beginning the author drew a parallel between The American Plan and Henry James's novella Washington Square. But he also noticed that the play by Richard Three Days of Rain Greenberg boasts its own splendidly astringent wit and pervasive sense of secrets and sadness and stymied hope. This play was revived there by British director David Grindley in 2009. 
     The author gave us a brief summary of this play. Greenberg brought distinctive twists to the scenario. He said about main characters, about a woman who fussed over her treats like a hypochondriac over his medication and suppressed her experience of radical uncertainty with a pedantic formality of speech and manner, who predicted her daughter an intricately unhappy life, I'm afraid, lived out in compensatory splendor. 
     This sophisticated, ambiguous play kept you guessing about all its characters. It's very end of the Eisenhower era and there was  the sense of a world on the cusp of change. The final scene jumped to 1970. Outside there was a Flower Power happening; inside, ageing people who, unlike the mother, have missed the boat.
     As for the author attitude he declared that it would be criminal not to see transferred to a studio space in London. 
     As for me, I enjoyed this article and this play. The plot is really interesting and I would visit it with great pleasure. 

Rendering №5

The article An Everywoman? In So Many Ways, No by Claudia La Rocco was published on the site http://www.nytimes.com/ on the 10th of March. 

At the beginning it’s important to say that The Nobel Prize-winning Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek describes how her male colleagues are allowed “to have this subjectivity, this precise, absolutely unmistakable gaze.”  This mode is “a way of talking,” that “a woman, who is not considered a subject, simply can’t have.” As directed by Tea Alagic and portrayed by Tina Benko, this Jackie teeters restlessly between subject and object. It is a grim portrait.The author noted that Jackie occupies a bleak limbo, given evocative theatrical life. urrounded by filth she remains spotless in a trench coat, full-skirted dress and heels, designed by Susan Hilferty. Ms. Jelinek also indicates that Jackie should be dragging her dead children, husbands and Bobby Kennedy behind her, their weight such that the actress might on any night have to end her monologue when overcome by effort. But Jackie, of course, was only a passenger in that car. Despite her grand stage she occupies a mean, airless little world. It is an arduous task for an actress. Ms. Benko must contend with the playwright’s myth making and political agenda on top of the Kennedy mythology: her character is doubly objectified. 

As for the author’s opinion I can say that she is meant to sink down under the weight of this delivery. Perhaps this is the only way of talking that remains for this object woman. Look at this brittle ghost, Ms. Jelinek’s relentless words insist, consider why she cannot rest.

Summary № 6

Chapter 21-24

Anne visited her old friend Mrs. Smith, who told her about unpleasant past of Mr. Elliot. From that moment Anne changed her attitude to him. The Musgroves came to Bath where Elizabeth invited everyone to Camden-Place for an evening party. Mr. Wentworth was there too. Harville and Anne discussed constancy of love and Frederick wrote to her a loving letter, where he told about his feelings. Soon Anne and Frederick declared about their engagement. Mr. Wentworth became a part of Anne’s family. 

Summary 5

Chapter 17-20

Anne visited her old friend Mrs. Smith, who was a widow. Lady Russell wanted  to be a new Lady Elliot, but there is never any burst of feeling. Anne didn’t like this woman at all, but her father had never heard her. The Crofts had come to Bath. Mary wrote that Benwick was in love with Louisa; Anne could scarcely believe it, because Benwick’s wife died not long ago. The Admiral told Anne about of Frederick's reaction, she stayed satisfied with it.  Frederick came to Bath. They spent time together again, but nobody told about their feelings.  Everyone in the country gossiped about soon marriage of Anne and Mr. Elliot. It was a concert where Anne and Frederick had a conversation. But Mr. Elliot interrupted them. 

Rendering №4

The article  Lichtenstein, at Tate Modern appeared in print in the 23 of February and it was written by Alastair Smart. This article is published on the site http://www.telegraph.co.uk. 
It should be noted that This monotonous retrospective reveals Roy Lichtenstein, the Pop Art pioneer, to have been rather a one-trick wonder. The author gave us the review of Tate’s Roy Lichtenstein retrospective by mentioning his struggles with claustrophobia. Most of Lichtenstein’s paintings, in a five-decade career till his death in 1997, felt to me oppressively similar. Theirs is a relentless, cartoonish aesthetic: all Ben-Day dots, thick black contours, and broad flat areas of bright primary colours. The author remind us that he took his inspiration from the cheaply printed, commercial imagery of newspaper ads and mail-order catalogues – seemingly carrying out a simple mechanical reproduction, but, in fact, painting everything by hand in a clean, deliberately depersonalised fashion. In 1963’s diptych Whaam! – reworked from an American war comic and enlarged to mimic a huge Ab Ex canvas – a fighter pilot blasts an enemy into flaming oblivion. Success came relatively late, in his late thirties (with careers as an art professor and painter of Wild West history scenes behind him) – but, when it did come, it was momentous. Some of his paintings even waggishly flaunt his success in traditionalists’ faces.It’s necessary to mention that Lichtenstein duly became a brand, lucrative but repetitive; a one-trick wonder, seemingly intent – after his long, early years as an outsider – to stick with a winning formula once he’d found it. Only really in his final series, of Song dynasty Chinese landscapes, is there a hint of variation: in 1996’s Landscape in Fog, an austere grid of dots marking a lake, mountain and sky is violated by bold gestural brushstrokes that capture a gathering fog. Probably the most telling work on show is Self-Portrait (1978). In conclusion it’s important to say that once the show had dealt with Lichtenstein’s intrepid breakthrough years, I found the monotony all too claustrophobic.

Film Review №1

Cast:
•  Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo
•  Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera
•  Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky
•  Mía Maestro as Cristina Kahlo
•  Ashley Judd as Tina Modotti
•  Antonio Banderas as David Alfaro Siqueiros
•  Edward Norton as Nelson Rockefeller
•  Amelia Zapata as Maid
•  Alejandro Usigli as Professor
•  Diego Luna as Alejandro Gonzalez Arias
Brilliant colours that bring Frida Kahlo's Mexico City to vibrant life combine with a captivating performance by Salma Hayek to make director Julie Taymor's FRIDA a fascinating film. Starting and ending with Frida on her deathbed, the film spans the famous painter's life from her teenage years to her death at the young age of 47. From start to finish, Frida is portrayed as a relentlessly energized, self-righteous, headstrong, assertive woman. She had liberal views and a socialist political stance. She was bisexual and promiscuous. She drank and abused painkillers, sang and danced, and fearlessly poured her pain and beauty into her paintings. At the age of 18, Frida was horribly injured in a bus accident. Though she learned to walk again, she lived her life in physical agony, enduring multiple surgeries, and eventually needing a wheelchair. Yet her condition did not stop her from having an exciting, tumultuous life as the wife of famed artist and womaniser Diego Rivera, who mentored her in her own work and encouraged her passions. While Frida's life is the main focus, her work is always present and the action of the film often fades into paintings and vice versa. However, the film only hints at the recognition and worldwide display that her painting received after her death. Taymor has created a lively and dramatically emotive film with FRIDA, capturing her endearing resiliency with colour, music and, of course, art.
As for me opinion Its a well written and scripted and acted movie. Salma Hayek at her best! She proves her valor and acting prowess through this movie and shows that when it comes to performing there's no competing her. Salma Hayek was an excellent choice for the character Frida, she has the sensuality, an artist like personality , as well as the Feminist characters in her to play that role.  It’s a very good movie and very sad. I can't imagine the suffering that this woman went thru all her life with pain and unfidelity, let's remenber that this is the story of her life.

Summary №4

Chapter 13-16

Anne should return to her father and sister, soon after the accident in Lyme she met Mrs. Clay and the rest of the time before the leaving she spent with her closest friend. Luisa got better from day to day. Benwick finished the trip to Uppercross because Anne wasn’t not there. Anne came back to Camden Place. Anne saw her family's new home for the first time, and Mr. Elliot was there too, but his behavior was very strange, he returned to the family again and his visits were very late to their house.