IN PARIS (BROAD STAGE): 80% – SWEET
LemonMeter | Apr 13, 2012 | Comments 1 |
Anna Sinyakina and Mikhail Baryshnikov in "in Paris" at the Broad Stage. Credit: Angela Weiss/WireImage.
BITTERSWEET
Baryshnikov’s physical approach serves him well in a performance piece that doesn’t give him much more than a dramatic scenario to work with. Directed by Dmitry Krymov, who also adapted the text, this production (performed in French and Russian with English supertitles) is long on mood and atmosphere, short on action. It’s really just an outline of a story, given a sophisticated and often haunting theatrical airbrushing.
Charles McNulty – LA Times
SWEET
It’s a familiar 20th Century backdrop, the formerly privileged in desperate exile, explored by diaspora writers from Bunin to Nabokov and given new resonance in this delicate, beautifully imagined play.
Jason Rohrer – Stage and Cinema
SWEET
Even the props give us moments of suspense. And oddly enough, you’ll likely leave the theater humming one particular tune usually associated with bad romance (but not Lady Gaga). This time, though, the feeling was hopeful and even happy that two strangers found a little comfort in the city of lights so far away from the home they left and long for.
Jana Monji – LA Examiner
SWEET
Ballet legend and avant-garde artist Mikhail Baryshnikov stars the U.S. Premiere of In Paris, an exquisite and compelling love story that takes place in 1930s Paris. Anna Sinyakina, leading actress in the Laboratory of director Dmitry Krymov, joins Baryshnikov in this profound meditation on loneliness and loss.
Candyce Columbus – LA Examiner
SWEET
Poetic, impressionistic and occasionally melancholy and whimsical, the elegant staging of legendary actor/dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov’s new show, In Paris, is breathtaking.
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA
SWEET
This well-paced and quietly beautiful play, based on a story by Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, is a dark, moving labor of love for Baryshnikov, who said he modeled his character, a general of the White Russian Army during World War I, on his own father, a lieutenant colonel.
Laura Hertzfeld – Entertainment Weekly
SWEET
This beautifully realized production is a winner in any language.
Willard Manus – Total Theater
SWEET
At 64 Baryshnikov is not leaping into the air, but he twirls with undiminished grace and a thrilling nonchalance that brings this slight drama and beautifully staged production to a magical and satisfying end.
Cynthia Citron – LA Examiner
SWEET
In Paris isn’t an epic, sentimental romance. It’s a simple story beautifully staged by an ensemble with remarkable technique. And while it might not move you to tears – it will stick with you like the memory of a long lost love.
Anthony Byrnes – Opening the Curtain
BITTERSWEET
It is experimental theatre, extremely different, and probably does not appeal to a large audience. As theatre goers were leaving the theatre, they walked away very quietly.
Carol Kaufman Segal – Reviewplays
BITTER
But the story that unfolds is a predictable and trite romance, for which the marvelous theatrical devices attempt, in vain, to lend some gravity. There’s little mystery to boy getting girl. What ensues after that is similarly unsurprising.
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly
IN PARIS
The Broad Stage
1310 11th St., Santa Monica
Call for schedule; Ends April 21, 2012
Tickets: $65-$135; (310) 434-3200
Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Filed Under: Featured • LemonMeter
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It is most disappointing that the Broad Stage does not offer affordable tickets for more students, seniors, or any rush ticket program for those with limited financial means. Many competitors (Taper/Ahmanson, The Actors Gang, Odessey, ANW, etc) offer tickets schemes that allow those on a limited budget access to the arts.
Limited access to the arts due to financial ability, especially at the Broad Stage reflects negatively on the Broad Foundation as a whole,since Eli and Edythe Broad’s foundation purports to support increasing arts access for many, rather than restricting it to the limited few
who are able to consistently afford upwards of seventy
dollars (say nothing of parking, gas, etc) for an hour or two of theater/music. For those earning minimum wage one ticket is equivalent to an entire days earnings. Two tickets at 150 dollars represents a weeks salary for
thousands of residents in LA County alone.
I encourage more patrons of the arts to contact the Broad Stage and question the absence of more affordable ticket policies, especially in comparison to other theaters in the LA area, meant to serve the diverse LA population.
I also encourage the Broad Stage to amend its ticketing policies and make clear any changes on its website.
CONTACT info@thebroadstage.com and Weber_jacki@smc.edu .