Decker Design

Roland Topor

Woodshed Collective creates instillation theater: plays that immerse audience members in intimate, site-specific dramatic worlds. In their newest piece, The Tenant, based on Roland Topor’s 1964 book of the same name, the troupe brings to life a surreal, increasingly horrifying story of dysfunctional urban living. Monsieur Trelkovsky (Michael Crane) moves into a recently vacated apartment only to find himself subject to constant harassment by his new neighbors. Along with spare, punchy dialogue (written by Bekah Brunstetter, Sarah Burgess, Paul Cohen, Dylan Dawson, Steven Levenson, and Tommy Smith), The Tenant tells its story through the ingenious use of various other elements, such as video (designed by Alex Koch, Josh Higgason, Kate Freer, and David Tennet) and music (composed by Duncan Sheik and David Van Tieghem). Of all the actors in this production, Mary Jane Gibson (playing one of Trelkovsky’s tormentors) gives the most focused, bold, and complex performance. The production, as a whole, offers to its audience a deeply engaging, chilling, and truly unique theatrical experience.

Manolo Blahnik, stiletto boot, 1994

The exhibition “Sporting Life,” currently on display at the Museum at FIT, examines the relationship between flair and functionality within the world of fashion. The show illuminates the ways in which practical and decorative garments influence each other. For example, a pair of Capezio pointe shoes sits alongside an irreverent reinterpretation thereof by Comme des Garçons. In a similar vein, both Thierry Mugler’s elegant, shapely rendering of a jelly shoe and a neon pink, neoprene dress designed by Donna Karan make creative use of, respectively, a style and a material not commonly associated with everyday clothes. “Sporting Life,” overall, argues, with humor and intelligence, that sportswear has prompted tremendous ingenuity in the worlds of both high fashion and casual dress.

"Bulldogs, New York City, 1988"

Elliott Erwitt, as evidenced by the exhibition of his work currently on display at the International Center of Photography, has a remarkable gift for comic storytelling. The following three photographs all bear humorous witness to different beings’ reactions to the condition (whether human or canine) of feeling and/or appearing small in a particular environment.

"Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988"

"Dog Legs, New York City, 1974"

"Dog, New York City, 1946"

In a similar vein, two more images find comedy in children’s mimicking, respectively, the poses and movements of adults.

"Bridgehampton, New York, 1990"

"Dance School, New York, 1977"

Despite casting people and dogs as objects of humor, Erwitt’s portraits never seem to mock their subjects. The photographer’s work, instead, celebrates the visually awkward situations in which all creatures, from time time, find themselves.

For further information on the exhibition discussed in this post, please visit the following site: http://www.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/elliott-erwitt-personal-best