LA RÉVOLUTION SURRÉALISTE

I'm a surrealist, which I suppose is why I belong in the fanciful world of musical theatre. Kitchen sink naturalism has never felt especially realistic to me because it only portrays the external life, while so much of my existence is internal. My interior landscape looks like a Magritte, a Dali, a Chagall. I've always felt vaguely disappointed that the everyday world doesn't look like an MGM musical.

While this feels like it's right out of a Cocteau film, it's actually a 1939 photograph by George Platt Lynes of Polish dancer Yurek Shabelevsky

"The Abandoned Theatre" Dan Ohlmann

This isn't a digital collage, but a photograph of a miniature theatre with the artist's hand for reference.For me, it captures the power and responsibility of writing for the theater. 

"The False Mirror" (1928) Rene Magritte

I love everything about this painting but the title, which feels negative in a way that the painting doesn't. There's nothing false to me about what he's portraying, which feels more like a window than a mirror, a window opening onto the world within. I'm reminded of Walt Whitman: "I contain multitudes" 

"Autumn in the Village" (1939-1945) Marc Chagall

I met this painting at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, a city that surprised me with its vitality. The lavender bolt bisecting the goat in the tree is not part of the painting, but is a reflection from the room.

But I imagine Chagall would have liked it. 

The first Broadway musical I saw was THE WIZ in 1975. Geoffrey Holder's imaginative design and direction captured my imagination and never let go. The Cyclone (above) was played by a woman with fabric unraveling from her turban.