Friday, March 30, 2007

Lulu in Malaysia

Louise Brooks was mentioned today in The Star, a Malayasian newspaper. The article about jewelry - and pearls in particular - name-checks the actress. The article, entiled "Ageless Bijoux," begins
O E Jewellery’s founding in 1906 coincided with the the Art Nouveau movement. Icons like Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin ruled the silent movie scene. In Germany, all artistic endeavours stopped during World War I from 1914 to 1918.
A weary world found solace in the Roaring Twenties. It was the Age of the Flapper. Music roared in as jazz took over. Machines became the new fascination. With their snazzy, short bob, women looked androgynous and shocked polite society. Pearls were worn by the yard and sleek elegant designs were the rage. Famous icons of the 1920s included silent stars like Louise Brooks and Marlene Dietrich. 
The 1930s saw a return to a more genteel ladylike appearance. Clothes were feminine and jewellery was beautifully ornate. Greta Garbo was one of the most popular icons of that era.
This is the first reference to Brooks which I have come across in a Malaysian publication.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Who is Lulu?

"Who is Lulu?" asks an article in today's Hartford Courant. The article by Frank Rizzo, "Yale Rep's Searing Study In Eroticism Isn't For The Timid," begins:
The poster in front of the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven stops the passerby dead in his tracks, but it isn't the one that features feminine flesh and fruit - the image that caused a stir last week when newspapers refused to run ads featuring that photo.

This image simply asks in large, in-your-face typography: "Who Is Lulu?"

Who indeed?

Not that most people, save a German theater major or a silent movie buff, would have any idea.

"Lulu" is the central character created by turn-of-the-last-century German playwright Frank Wedekind, who is having a banner year after a century of neglect. The hip, rock Broadway musical "Spring Awakening," another of his plays, has its own provocative subject of adolescent sexual angst.

But "Lulu" makes ""Spring Awakening" seem like child's play.

"Lulu" is the collective title of the merging of two of Wedekind's plays, "Earth Spirit" and "Pandora's Box," written over 10 years. The works center on a charismatic female character, the object of all men's affections - not to mention lust, perversion, sadism and savagery.

His expressionistic plays - and "Lulu" is a prime example - expose bourgeois morality for all its absurdity and hypocrisy. "Lulu" focuses on the 18-year-old who destroys a series of males "through her uninhibited but essentially innocent enjoyment of sex," according to theater scholar Trevor R. Griffiths.

There have been many artists who sought to tame Wedekind's wild "Lulu." The play was banned (it was only produced once in Wedekind's lifetime, at a private showing in 1905), emerging in 1928, when it became a now-celebrated German silent film, "Pandora's Box," directed by G.W. Pabst. The film starred American actress Louise Brooks, who gave an extraordinarily fresh and vivid performance. (A new Criterion Collection DVD with extras is out.)

An Alban Berg opera version was produced in the '30s. Other rare stage productions include one presented by Lee Brauer at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., in 1980; another in 1999 with an adaptation by English playwright Peter Barnes; and another in London in 2001, starring Anna Friel.
I wish I could be there. If you live in the Hartford area, GO SEE THIS PLAY! And if you do, please post a report.

To learn more about "Lulu" and to see pictures from the Yale Rep production, go to www.yalerep.org. "Lulu" runs Friday through April 21 at the Yale Repertory Theater, York and Chapel streets, New Haven. Performances are Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. There is an 8 p.m. performance this Sunday. Matinees at 2 will be held on April 7, 11, 14 and 21. Tickets are $35 to $55. Tickets and information 203-432-1234 orwww.yalerep.org.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Magic & Romance of Art Dolls

A book I've never seen before, Magic & Romance of Art Dolls, is for sale on eBay. According to the item description,

Some of the real and fictional characters which were fashioned into dolls and illustrated in the book are Ziegfield Follies girl Marilyn Miller, Josephine Baker, Louise Brooks, Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolf Valentino, Shirley Temple, Felix the Cat, Betty Boop, Madame Butterfly, Mimi, Carmen, Pierrot and Madame Pompadour.
Unfortunately, the seller doesn't picture the Louise Brooks doll, as far as I can figure. Here is the book, with Valentino on the cover.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Christina Aguilera does Louise Brooks

According to an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail, pop star Christina Aguilera impersonated Louise Brooks at a recent concert. The newspaper's reporter noted:
Visually, the show felt like a Broadway fantasia on themes from the thirties, with references to the steamy vigour of the Savoy Ballroom, to the white-clad elegance of the Cotton Club, and to the risqué pantomime of Clara Bow and Louise Brooks (both impersonated by Ms. Aguilera in videos made to look like silent films). A montage of tabloid front pages rolling off an old printing press projected Ms. Aguilera (the subject of every headline) into the period's media machinery, while she sang about how women need to defeat double standards.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Libby Holman's word game

This item appeared in a Walter Winchell column back in the early 1930's. Louise Brooks makes an appearance . . . . Brooks Atkinson was a famous critic of the time.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Anna May Wong article

There is an interesting article about Anna May Wong reproduced onto the alt.movies.silent newsgroup. Check it out here.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Inspiration

According to the item description on eBay, the image of Louise Brooks shown below inspired the color study for the cover of Leanta Books edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars, also shown below. THe artist is named Burton. Check it out for yourself here.
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