Ilan Stavans "The Oven": Performance and Panel Discussion At Charlestown Working Theater

Tonight, November 20, I will be moderating a panel discussion after a performance of Ilan Stavans' The Oven at Charlestown Working Theater. My panelists will be Stavans, who wrote and performs in the show, and director Matthew Glassman.

The Oven is an autobiographical piece about Stavans' experience of an ecstatic ritual as a guest of an indigenous religious group in the Columbian Amazon.

Stavans is a professor of Latin American and Latino cultures at Amherst College, and a prolific translator of English, Spanish, Yiddish and Hebrew literature.

Matthew Glassman is an actor, director, and playwright affiliated with Double Edge Theatre in Ashfield, Massachusetts.

On The Arts Fuse: Double Edge Theatre's "Once A Blue Moon"

Last week, I travelled to the rural town of Ashfield, Massachusetts, to review Double Edge Theatre's summer spectacle, Once a Blue Moon (Cada Luna Azul).

What sets Double Edge Theatre apart from other troupes is that it has always forged an intimate link between the world of physical theater and the world of literature and ideas.

As I note that while Once a Blue Moon is a devised piece featuring contributions from many collaborators, the particular role that, Double Edge's artistic director, Stacy Klein, has in shaping the performance:

Those who have thrilled by Double Edge’s performances in conventional theater spaces have had a glimpse of director Stacy Klein’s expansive imagination. (My first encounter was a 2007 production of Republic of Dreams at the Charlestown Working Theater). But you don’t really know just what she is capable of unless you see Klein working on her home turf. She uses music, sound effects, dialogue, and the movements of actors and puppets to guide the attention and focus of audience members. In some ways, Klein is like a highly skilled filmmaker who uses camera pans and zooms to control what appears on the screen. Of course, in the theater Klein is working in real time, in three-dimensional space. There’s no editing room here.

Of course, Klein knows that the human visual cortex remains a far more powerful instrument than Hollywood’s most expensive cameras.

You can read the entire review on The Arts Fuse!