Sukces Omara Sangare

[Gość: Elzbieta]

Czytalam ostatnio informacje o sukcesie Omara Sagare. "New York Times"
opublikowal wspaniala recenzje dla naszego aktora. Ciesze sie i trzymam
kciuki.

[Gość: Justyna]

Znalazłam amerykańską recenzje na internecie. Jeśli znasz angielski przeczytaj.
To jest prawdziwy sukces. No i mamy jeszcze jednego międzynarodowego aktora.
Justyna


PS.
Friday, August 16, 2002

NEWSDAY
Theater

An Emphasis on Color in an Elegant “Othello”
Review
Othello. By William Shakespeare, directed by Frederic DeFeis. Arena Players
Repertory Company at Suffolk Vanderbilt Museum, 180 Little Neck Rd.,
Centerport. Seen at last Friday’s performance. Continues through Sept. 1,
Wednesday through Friday, and Sunday evenings.


By Michael Bracken

The stunning courtyard of the Vanderbilt Museum makes a dramatic setting for
the Arena Players Summer Shakespeare Festival’s “Othello”. With its sweeping
staircase and Spanish accent, it is elegant and exotic, just like the
production it now hosts.

Why exotic? Well, for starters, the Moor of Venice is now the Black of Angola,
and the actor playing him is currently, according to the production notes,
the “only” black Polish actor. Directed by Frederic DeFeis this “Othello” sees
its title character as a colonial naif from Portuguese Angola used by the
establishment in Lisbon for its own military ends. As played by Omar Sangare,
Othello is elegant, but it’s the elegance of an outsider marked by the color of
his skin.

Sangare is the soul of this production. One wonders which came first, the
overall concept or his casting. It doesn’t matter: The two fit together like
yin and yang. He is mesmerizing. His is a smiling Othello, whose amusement at
those around him may be a little patronizing but, at least initially, bears no
malice. He gives Othello the arrogance but also the insecurity of someone who
thinks he knows everything.

Sangare’s Othello is very much the general, commanding the stage as he would
his legions. His body language is precise and majestic. One doesn’t always
agree with his choices, but one admires the intensity with which he makes them.
He speaks his lines with an accent, which is sometimes at odds with
Shakespeare’s meter, but underscores his implicit alienation as a dark-skinned
foreigner in white society.

In the critical role of Iago, Stephen Wangner took a while to get comfortable
at the performance I saw, but by the end of the first act had settled into a
convincing and entertaining portrayal. Sangare’s youth makes Carolyn Papadin
seem a bit old for Desdemona, and Christine Lobesso-Sullivan is a young Emilia,
but they both give excellent performances.

Director DeFeis’ vision of Othello as a victim not only of his own pride but
also of a racist society comes though loud and clear. I think this would have
been equally true without the wholesale alteration of Shakespeare’s geography,
which I found distracting. DeFeis need not to take his concept so literally.
His decision to change every reference to “the Moor” to “the Black” is equally
jarring, but more defensible. It drives home both Othello’s color and his
dehumanization. Purists may object, but it accomplishes its goal.

If the sensual beauty of the courtyard of the Vanderbilt Museum on a summer
night is not enough to lure you to Centerport, let the charismatic intensity of
Omar Sangare as Othello do so. This is an intelligent interpretation of what is
arguably Shakespeare’s most purely dramatic play.

Information: [phone]

Dziekuje za recenzje

[Gość: Elzbieta]

Zaluje, ale nie znam angielskiego. Wiadomosc o Otellu przeczytalam w polskiej
prasie. Wydrukowalam recenzje i poprosze kogos o tlumaczenie. Dziekuje,
Elzbieta

The New York Times

[Gość: Alex]

Mam cos dla Was.



THE NEW YORK TIMES
Arts & Entertainment
August 14, 2002

For a Polish Outsider, ?Othello? Rings True
By Barbara Delatiner

Omar Sangare was born to play Othello. Not just because he is black like
Shakespeare?s Moor, but also, he said, because ?Othello?s life is the life I
have lived; the life of the outsider.?

Mr. Sangare, who plays the title role in the Arena Players production of the
tragedy opening Wednesday at the Vanderbilt Museum, is black and Polish; the
first and, he said, for the time being, the only black Polish actor.

As the son of a student from Mali who met and married a Polish woman while
studying in Poland, Mr. Sangare said he knows what it is like ?to be a black in
a white man?s society - like Othello.?

The ?aloneness,? he said, began when he was growing up in Stalowa Wola, where
he was considered something of an oddity. His father returned to Africa shortly
after his birth, and Mr. Sangare only sees him occasionally; he was raised be
his mother, who died nine years ago.

?It was an interesting experience,? he said. ?I always had the impression that
I was on the stage. People would look at me, this strange creature, and wait
for my reaction. So from the very beginning I am an actor, always an actor. I
learned how to act on the stage of my life, how to survive.?

Survival was made easier, he said, by his letter-perfect Polish. In fact, after
his entrance examination for the Warsaw Theatre Academy one of the professors
?took me aside and told me that my Polish was the highest level of all the
applicants,? he said.

The professors in the theater school were concerned about ?what they could do
with this strange-looking guy, what roles they could give me,? he said.

Nevertheless, he was admitted. The modernists prevailed, he said, convincing
the others that he represented ?the new sign of nowadays.?

He spent four years at the academy, where he studied with Andrzej Wajda, the
Polish director who won a lifetime-achievement Oscar. Then Mr. Sangare won a
scholarship to the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England, and
worked with Derek Jacoby, Alan Rickman, Michael Kahn and Jeremy Irons.

Active on stage as a member of the popular Studio Theater in Warsaw and a
regular in Polish films, Mr. Sangare has also appeared and taught at the
Edinburgh Theater Festival in 1998, and won the best acting award for his one-
man drama, ?True Theater Critic,? at the New York International Fringe Festival
in 1997.

His thriving career has brought him acclaim in traditional Polish roles, as
well as parts like Horatio in ?Hamlet? and Paul in ?Six Degrees of Separation.?

But there was no opportunity to fulfill his dream of playing Othello until last
March, when the Polish government sent Mr. Sangare, who is also a published
poet, to New York to participate in a program sponsored by the Poetry Society
of America called ?Try to Praise the Mutilated World: An Evening in Celebration
of Contemporary Polish Poetry.?

While he was in the city, a friend told him about an ad in Backstage, the
theater publication, looking for an actor to play Othello.

He auditioned and was immediately hired. ?The others who answered the ad tended
to be hip-hop actors,? said Frederic DeFeis, the artistic director of Arena
Players Repertory Theatre, who is directing this production. ?Here was a
classically trained actor, and as we began rehearsals I discovered in his
portrayal a sense of internalization, of passion, that you rarely find.?

Mr. DeFeis said, the actor ?is doing very well with the language challenge. The
cast is impressed.?

After his run in ?Othello? ends, Mr. Sangare will go to Santa Barbara, Calif.,
to work with the Lit Moon Theater and teach at Westmont College. But although
he hopes that his connection with this country goes on he plans to return to
Poland.

He wants to continue to teach his reluctant fellow Poles ?to accept
differences, realize that I am no worse or better than anybody else.?

[Gość: jorgus]

A jakież to zajęcia miał on z Wajdą? I dlaczego nie wspomniał o Górskiej, albo
Englercie?

[Gość: Adrianna]

Rozmawiałam niedawno z Adamem Zagajewskim. Nasz Poeta wspólnie z Omarem Sangare
wziął udział w spotkaniu literackim w Nowym Jorku. Niezwykle cenie sobie
twórczość Pana Sangare i wiem, że w swoim zachwycie nie jestem osamotniona.
Adrianna /Uniwersytet Jagielloński/

[Gość: h]

jak to mowic o sukcesie po jednej roli i tomiku badz co badz marnych wierszy?