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Sibyl Wickersheimer

Mindplay

January 21, 2025

When the audience enters the theater, they are asked to fill out a slip of paper with one word that has been on their mind. Part of the show is made up of audience participation and these slips of paper come into play. Another part of the show written by DePonto and Josh Koenigsberg recounts DePonto’s life with mentalism, his childhood, his memories, his studies and his discoveries about the mind. He begins by discussing the “memory palace,” the way in which the mind catalogs our memories. The remarkable set by Sibyl Wickersheimer which is revealed when a curtain is opened is a wall of 146 lockers which resemble the way the mind works. DePonto opens some of these and removes items while some of the lockers seem to have a mind of their own and open without his doing anything. [more]

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

April 3, 2019

Shakespeare’s politically charged Roman tragedy, "Julius Caesar," has always been a touchstone for inflaming emotions. In earlier times, monarchs used to ban the play when uprisings were imminent. In the 1930’s, the play was presented as an anti-Fascist rallying cry. In our own era, it has been presented with various American presidents as the stand-in for Caesar. While Shana Cooper’s production for Theatre for a New Audience here called "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar" is vigorous, lusty and lucid, it offers no political point of view. We never understand why the conspirators want to get rid of Caesar nor what they want to replace him with instead. [more]