Dorf does Babel

Corny title joke aside, author and playwright Ariel Dorfman arrived for Just Buffalo Literary Center’s second of four readings in their Babel series, and he was very humorous, very political, and very approachable. When I first heard about the series, I envisioned it to be more like this entry than the last. I liked Pamuk’s lecture about the author and his duty, but it just didn’t quite touch on his work as art itself. With Dorfman, we got anecdotes, background information, the reading of novel passages and journalistic articles, and,…

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REVIEW: Death and the Maiden [1994]

“A midnight knock at the door” Roman Polanski has always appeared to me as director who utilizes large casts and set pieces. Not quite a crafter of epics, but big pictures nonetheless. Sure his first film, Knife in the Water, was on a small scale—it was his debut. I was thinking more of The Ninth Gate, The Pianist, and Oliver Twist. Interestingly, right before that trio of large productions, he brought us Death and the Maiden, an Ariel Dorfman play using only three characters to tell its story of revenge,…

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Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Babel

Tonight saw the premiere of Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Babel series. What is being billed as a yearly event, (at least for 3 years at the moment), the series sees award-winning authors coming to Buffalo for a reading. The venue is Babeville’s Asbury Hall and I must saw it is a great choice. While I can’t speak for the balcony, I don’t think there is a bad seat in the house. Holding maybe a thousand people allows for even the back row to have prime visibility towards the stage. Some…

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