On May 3rd, Frautschi Hall, 7 p.m., as part of MACH 33: The Caltech Festival of New Science-Driven Plays, was the latest version of Tom Lavagnino’s Dementia Doula. Like the festival’s other show, entitled The Null Test (which explores the legal hijinks of a self-driving car company), this was a staged reading: the cast, directed by Susan Dalian, performing from scripts on music stands. Originally presented under the name Crisis Goalie at the 2024 Utah Shakespeare Festival, then directed by Britannia Howe, this pared-down staging celebrates the script on its own terms, privileging nuanced acting over elaborate production.
Looking down from a plane, Wang Mansheng felt uneasy about how much of the Earth is now covered by roads and buildings. Reflecting on this environmental change, he stated, “Pure nature is now unattainable except through my imagination or brush.” His new works at the Huntington put that imagined nature on display.
Watching William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is always a delve into the delightful confusion between desire, identity, and illusion, in a dramatic comedy that plays with what we feel and how we show ourselves. In the production directed by Miranda Stewart, presented at the Ramo Auditorium between April 25th and 27th by EXPLiCIT (EXtracurricular PLayers at the California Institute of Technology—the ‘i’ is imaginary), the 1601 classic from the Elizabethan era gains new life with freshness, rhythm and a staging that honors the carnival spirit of the work without losing its emotional depth.
I’m Still Here is a 2024 Brazilian historical drama that won Best International and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress in a Leading Role at this year’s 97th Academy Awards.
“For stars from Bette Davis to Angelina Jolie, the ultimate rite of passage since the 1950s has been sitting for the legendary Don Bachardy,” Michael Slenske wrote for The Hollywood Reporter. On Saturday, over 100 works of art and archival materials from Bachardy’s life and career will be on display at The Huntington’s MaryLou and George Boone Gallery.
Nicholas Winton is an English stockbroker who has a comfortable life in 1930 London but knows that Hitler’s Germany is invading Praga, Czechoslovakia; with a humanitarian group, he helps save 669 children from Nazism. Winton worked quickly to find foster families for hundreds of children—a beautiful and sad biographical story. Winton was a kind of Schindler but an English one. Nicholas saved these children, but always wondered what was going on with them. He kept this story a secret. Only the people who helped save these children knew until his wife found a scrapbook with photos of the children decades later (in 1988) and, talking to her husband, discovered the whole story. Grete, his wife, shared this story with a historian, which led to a British TV show. This widely-watched program interviewed him and allowed him to meet these “children” again, who were already adults at the time, in a very moving encounter that was the film’s climax.
We don’t talk about it. We don’t want to admit it. But racism is still here, still present, and each one of us feels its weight in some way. How can we still believe that a person’s worth can be defined by the color of their skin or where they were born? How many times have I heard, “Oh, you’re Italian? So, the mafia? Pizza? You don’t do much, do you?” Stereotypes. Labels. Concepts created decades ago that somehow still manage to stick. It’s in my bones, this feeling of being judged, of being categorized. I don’t have darker skin, but I was born Italian. I don’t deny it. I embrace it. And yet, I feel the sting of assumptions, of remarks that make me feel misplaced in a world that should have moved past this nonsense already.
Last month, the Norton Simon Museum in Old Pas received this portrait: Diego Velázquez’s “Queen Mariana of Austria” (1652–53). On special loan from the Museo del Prado, the famed Spanish national art museum in Madrid, this painting is being displayed on the West Coast for the first time.
In the midst of procrastinating yet another set, I am seized by my obsession with the godforsaken company Nintendo. Ever since the official announcement of the Nintendo Switch 2 (yes that is actually its name), I have not known a day of peace. I seem to be physically incapable of lasting 24 hours without thinking about this new console. With a supposed price of around $400-449, it is important to see if it will match up to the high price point.
