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Post by Llyan (Admin) on Feb 12, 2017 2:49:25 GMT
I think this is a fantastic photo of Cote - I can't recall when or where (may have been the Image Awards) it was taken
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Post by Llyan (Admin) on Jul 9, 2017 23:37:55 GMT
Just saw this on Twitter. The theater tweeted it so it's reliable.
Guenia Lemos joins the cast of The Clean House as Matilde. From Brazil, Guenia replaces Cote de Pablo who withdrew for personal reasons.
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Post by pdsmith777 on Jul 10, 2017 1:55:31 GMT
Were they in rehearsals or had they already opened?
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Post by Llyan (Admin) on Jul 10, 2017 1:59:43 GMT
Were they in rehearsals or had they already opened? Rehearsals. They began rehearsals on June 27. One of Cote's fans posted a picture on social media of Cote arriving for rehearsals.
Dates of performance: July 19-29. Website has already been updated with the casting change. wtfestival.org/main-events/the-clean-house/?gclid=CJSMgbzQ_dQCFYU_GwodKBUOvA
Most responses on Twitter (there aren't many) are hoping she's okay. A few are upset about being "stuck" with tickets. One, who didn't tweet to the announcement, has airline tickets to get there and hotel reservations AND the tickets.
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Post by pdsmith777 on Jul 10, 2017 2:50:27 GMT
I can see how people would be upset if they were going only to see Cote. Not familiar with the play, or the rest of the cast, but with two Tony nominated actresses, a Tony award winning director, and Pulitzer finalist playwright, should mean it's a fairly good play.
Hope all is with well with Cote and that there's not more to the story (drama) than being reported. (tweeted)
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Post by Llyan (Admin) on Jul 29, 2017 1:12:51 GMT
I forgot to post the review written on opening night. Yes, she wasn't in it but I thought some might be interested anyway:
artsfuse.org/161705/theater-review-a-superb-clean-house-at-the-williamstown-theatre-festival/
The play (running through the 29th) got a fabulous review, including Guenia Lumos (Matlide) who replaced CdP when she dropped out.
This is a masterful production of Sarah Ruhl’s sparkling update of Commedia dell’arte.
The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl. Directed by Rebecca Taichman. Staged by the Williamstown Theatre Festival on its MainStage, Williamstown, MA through July 29. By Helen Epstein
Since the beginning of this century, playwright Sarah Ruhl has been entertaining theatergoers with her absurdist comedies, scripts that are firmly grounded in realities (past and present), though built around strikingly wacky concepts. Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone (2007) remains vivid in my mind even though I reviewed it for The Arts Fuse in 2009; in it, a man dies, but his cell phone does not. (At that time 275 million cell phones were being used in the United States.) Ruhl’s genius in that script and in her next play, In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play (2009), was to take an ‘essential’ techno-cultural instrument and make use of it — as a symbol of social transformation as well as a catalyst for quirky dramatic action.
In The Clean House, Ruhl starts out by positing the contemporary (personal, professional, philosophical, and cross-cultural) relationship between a woman doctor and her cleaning lady. She then spins a farcical tale that looks at betrayal, the blinders of privilege, the differences between the professional and working class, love, sex, marriage, sibling relations, relations between four very different kinds of women and one man, various perceptions of humor, the lies we tell ourselves to justify what we do, and God knows what else.
The play opens in the suburban, all-white living room of a successful doctor couple. (In the program, the location is described as “A metaphysical Connecticut or a house that is not far from the city and not far from the sea.”) The husband is an always-busy, eminent, and charismatic cancer surgeon; his wife, Lane, is not as successful. They employ a Brazilian maid named Matilde who is dressed in mourning and hates cleaning. Matilde quickly figures out that Lane’s husband has fallen in love with a patient when, in the company of the wife’s sister, Virginia, she happens upon a pair of bright red bikini panties in the couple’s laundry. I will not describe the plot twists, hilariously honest monologues, and vividly staged flights of fancy that follow – suffice it to say that they are fabulously theatrical as well as visually and intellectually satisfying.
Ruhl started out wanting to be a poet and her dialogue reflects this ambition — her lines can be both lyrical and dramatically effective. “It has been such a hard month,” Lane confesses in her opening monologue, “My cleaning lady got depressed and stopped cleaning my house….I didn’t go to medical school to clean my own house.” Assessing the situation, Virginia takes on the task.
Lane’s sister, who studied Greek Literature at Bryn Mawr, acknowledges that her sibling is “a doctor in an important hospital,“ but wonders how one hospital can be more important than another. And she is somewhat baffled that Lane has “given up the privilege of cleaning her own house.” As for the cleaning lady, she is more interested in coming up with the perfect joke than in maintaining a clean house. “If more women knew more jokes,” she says, “there would be more justice in the world.”
There is, of course, little justice on hand for any of the characters in the play — but there is plenty of laughter.
The Williamstown Theatre Festival has placed the sparkling wit of Ruhl’s text in the hands of a director, Rebecca Taichman, who is deeply familiar with the impish subtleties of the playwright’s work. Taichman has also chosen an extremely talented cast and a stellar design team. They make full use of the WTF’s massive technical resources; the production’s jokes extend from the verbal to the physical, the visual to the musical.
Guenia Lemos is superb as the maid whose name Lane has a lot of trouble pronouncing. The worker may be dressed in black, but she is determined to be funny. The actress takes on the classical servant role, which in most contemporary dramas been relegated to caricature (or silence) and endows it with idiosyncratic vim and vigor.
The masterful Jayne Atkinson – clad in elegant white pants and top, a helmet of blond hair on her head, imbues the character of Lane with a Clintonesque competence. She also exudes an obtuse obnoxiousness that seems to channel an Alec Baldwin arrogance when she delivers lines such as “I don’t want an interesting person to clean my house….I want you to do all the things I want you to do without having to tell you what to do.” She is totally convincing as a first-world professional — a little short on empathy for anyone but herself.
Jessica Hecht steals her scenes as Virginia, the unappreciated mousy younger sister who is as intelligent as Lane but far more perceptive about other people. For reasons that are left unexplored, she has no job and no children. She likes cleaning because it clears her head. “If you do not clean, how can you measure the progress in your life?” Hecht asks, with flawless comedic timing.
Bernard White, the sole male in the company, adds admirable complexity to the figure of Charles, whose character comes dangerously close to caricature. The set-up: this is a charismatic surgeon falls in love with his patient before performing a mastectomy on her. The actor skates along the edge of realism and parody with great ease. (L to R): Priscilla Lopez (Ana), Jayne Atkinson (Lane). Photo: Daniel Rader.
The most pleasant surprise in the WTF production for me was to watch Priscilla Lopez. the original Diana Morales in A Chorus Line. She is quite fine as the Argentinian painter Ana, a gracious 67-year-old Other Woman.
The WTF set is spectacular. It initially functions as a signboard on which Ruhl’s wry introductions, interpretations, and summaries of the action appear as super-titles in the manner of Jenny Holzer’s text paintings: “VIRGINIA AND LANE EXPERIENCE A PRIMAL MOMENT WHEN THEY ARE SEVEN AND NINE YEARS OLD” says one. “LANE MAKES A HOUSECALL TO HER HUSBAND’S SOUL-MATE” reads another. It would be spoiling the visuals to go into any detail about how the set splits, showing us doings far away from the all-white living room,. Scenic Designer Riccardo Hernandez, Costume Designer Anita Yavich, Lighting Designer Ben Stanton, and Sound Designer Andre Pluess all deserve high praise.
Taichman has put together a masterful production of Ruhl’s update of Commedia dell’arte; the evening manages to supply amusement along with the kinds of psychological insight that one expects from serious drama. There is something cleansing about the high spirits of The Clean House in these low and difficult times.
Helen Epstein reviews books and theater for artsfuse. She is the author of Joe Papp: An American Life and nine other books. Her work can be found at Plunkett Lake Press.
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Post by pdsmith777 on Aug 21, 2017 2:50:15 GMT
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Post by Llyan (Admin) on Aug 21, 2017 23:47:34 GMT
I don't click on links without knowing what they are. Can you say what it is?
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Post by pdsmith777 on Aug 22, 2017 1:00:10 GMT
It's a TV guide interview with Cote posted on YouTube. Done back in '13.
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Post by Llyan (Admin) on Aug 22, 2017 1:05:03 GMT
It's a TV guide interview with Cote posted on YouTube. Done back in '13. Thank you. I think I remember which one so I'll watch to make sure.
EDIT: Yep. I remember that one. Interesting it's from 2013 and she left that same year.
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Post by pdsmith777 on Aug 22, 2017 1:19:26 GMT
I found it interesting since in the interview she states that she believes that "something" has happened between Ziva and DiNozzo, as far as a physical relationship is concerned. At least that's how I interpreted the statement. Since so many were incensed at Ziva having DiNozzo's baby it seemed funny to me that Cote seemed to hint at it before her departure.
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Post by Llyan (Admin) on Aug 22, 2017 1:32:27 GMT
And Michael was equally sure they hadn't. Didn't want it at all. Guess he got kicked in the backside on his way out the door.
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Post by llyan on Aug 22, 2017 1:39:35 GMT
You can actually embed the video on this site. when you reply, click the little black and while clapboard icon (near the right side of the icon bar.) It'll open a window, paste the youtube link and it will be embedded like below.
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Post by pdsmith777 on Aug 22, 2017 1:46:47 GMT
I tried to post from the </> button, then past the link in the box that came up, but nothing happened. Tech savvy am I not. Which is why my favorite tech repair tool is the baseball bat.
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Post by Llyan (Admin) on Aug 22, 2017 1:47:20 GMT
Ooo. Cool. Thanks again, Llyan.
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