Mieko Ouchi: Two Plays
by Mieko Ouchi
The Blue Light
Leni Riefenstahl, 100 years
old, is in the office of a young female Hollywood studio executive.
Leni’s reason to be there is clear, to make one last desperate pitch
to direct her first feature film in fifty years. The young woman willing
to meet her? Much harder to say… A thought provoking contemplation
on art, politics and the seduction of fascism, and a theatrical examination
of a woman who danced one perfect dance with the devil and changed the
way films are made forever.
Leni Riefenstahl was one of
the most remarkable and controversial women of the 20th century. Dancer,
actor, photographer and filmmaker, Riefenstahl caught the eye of Adolf
Hitler with her prodigious first film: “The Blue Light.” A cinematic
innovator, her decision to direct “Triumph of the Will,” got her
blacklisted as a filmmaker until her death in 2003 at 101, unrepentant
and mostly forgotten.
Chosen one of the Top 5 New
Plays in 2006 in Canada by The Globe and Mail.
“Art that settles in retrospect
for disapproving of Nazism is a Deutschmark a dozen. Art that probes
the sexual allure of fascism is a euro a gross. The Blue Light
ventures further: it’s art that wonders about art unhingedfrom moral
consequence. …Now that’s genuinely queasy.”
—Liz Nicholls,
The Edmonton Journal
The Red Priest (Eight
Ways To Say Goodbye)
Trapped in a loveless and abusive
marriage, a young un-named woman is forced by her husband, a rich courtier
of Louis XV, to take violin lessons from the aging and desperate Italian
composer Antonio Vivaldi, and within six weeks play a concerto for the
court in Paris in 1741. All for a bet. The delicate, complex and combative
journey they embark on will not only decide their futures, but also
change them both in ways they never imagined. A story about the healing
power of music and the journey to become an artist.
Finalist for the 2004 Governor
General’s Literary Award for Drama.
Winner of the 2005 Canadian
Authors Association Carol Bolt Award for Drama.
“This dazzling orchestration
of theatrical virtuosity… is destined to blaze a trail across the
Canadian theatre scene as vivid and bright as Antonio Vivaldi’s shock
of flaming red hair.”
Alexandra Gill,
The Globe and Mail
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