Retrospectiva 2013 – por Arnaldo Bloch (O Globo) com a minha bunda etc…

Criado por Arnaldo Bloch – do O Globo, com participação minha e da minha bunda – e um helicóptero especial, aqui vai uma retrospectiva de 2013:

Como nos vídeos anteriores, Ceylão interpreta todos os personagens, só que desta vez, além da paródia de Caetano (comentando “todos os assuntos”), Riva Thril (ex-socialite que conheceu todo mundo nos anos do desbunde) e da caricatura de Woody Allen, a apresentadora ganha a companhia de um âncora (Willy Wonder). Enquanto Frank Fiorucci, o dândi inspirado num determinado comentarista de cinema, mostra sua perplexidade com Eike e com o mensalão, o programa estreia entrevistas de rua (claro que os transeuntes também são interpretados pelo Ceylão comediante) e uma participação especial de Gerald Thomas, esse em carne e osso, com imagens enviadas de um retiro na Suíça.

Leia mais sobre esse assunto em http://oglobo.globo.com/cultura/apresentadora-loura-faz-revisao-anarquica-de-2013-11171489#ixzz2ow2yald5
© 1996 – 2013. Todos direitos reservados a Infoglobo Comunicação e Participações S.A. Este material não pode ser publicado, transmitido por broadcast, reescrito ou redistribuído sem autorização.

My ass, especially for O Globo

My eye ! Not the spying eye – The Snowden / Orwell eye !

click on the link below (it’s safe)

cliquem no link abaixo ( É seguro)

http://oglobo.globo.com/cultura/apresentadora-loura-faz-revisao-anarquica-de-2013-11171489

Happy 2014 – or, as Beckett would’ve said:

“I’m unhappy but I’m not unhappy enough”

LOVE
Gerald Thomas

2014 – the year of the autobiography and “Entredentes” !!

Wengen – December 26 2013 – almost 2014.

Let’s Say it all Starts – with the years of my infancy when I saw my mother all broken, bones up in the air, flesh all torn up – all here, almost all here in this Alpine village where…well, “were the ruins still there as I played as a child”. Yes, the ruins are all here.

Ten years ago today (seems like a real eternity), Christmas of 2003 I was writing frantically what was (then) supposed to be my autobiography. Back then, still living in Belsize Park and after having mooned the audience in Rio after the closing of the curtain over my best piece thus far, “Tristan und Isolde” (version # 2, after the Weimar version 1996 with Hans Aschenbach), I came up here to Wengen to write.

Those writings, were called “Suicide Note – Truth and Lies “the Empire of Half Truths”.

My mother was still alive.

Yes, my mother!

Yes, Freud again. Or, something like that.

Freud in my “Tristan und Isolde” was a natural occurrence of the fact that I lived very near his statue (off of Ornam Road, NW3) and the Tavistock Clinic and, thus, the Freud Museum, on Frognal. Yes, Wagner’s masterpiece set in Freud’s practice! Makes all the sense in the world.

Today, on this snowy day in Wengen, where the “ruins are still there as I played as a child”, I feel like calling it quits, saying my final goodbyes and moving on to something else. Something else? Something other. Something other-else. Goodbye ain’t good enough. I’ve said it too many times. Far too many times and nobody believes in my goodbyes any more.

Thus, this autobiography would make sense again as a Suicide Note. Total sense. Full cycle. “Mission accomplished” would be the term, had it not been so trivialized (lately by Snowden)

Did I treat my mother in a terrible way towards the end of her life which – seen in retrospect – I am now bitter about.

Yes, certainly.

“I was sure, from the beginning of my pregnancy, that I was going to give birth to a genius” – she said to me (I think it was in New York – while living with me right after my father’s death in 1984).Imagine that! Imagine driving and hearing these words! Yes, while walking with me in Williamsburg, or in the back seat of my dark green Toyota Celica (the Nicaraguan tank), crossing over the Williamsburg bridge, that is what she said.

Something has just occurred to me:

My mother was always an image I saw through the rear view mirror!

That’s astonishing to me.

I represent and interpret my life and compare my state of mind as that of an eternal refugee.

A refugee. All my life fleeing.

Does anyone know what that means? Spending a life running or “on the run”?

Yes, on the run I remain.

If this were a movie and not just writing, it would most certainly be a “road movie”.

But it’s my life’s story: “The Empire of Half Truths”. Is anybody out there really listening?

I expect that someone, some day, somewhere, might.

But I am screaming. Of course the language isn’t one of two: it’s the language of Babel. It’s all of it. The whole universe and its sounds.

It’s deafening. It’s deafening in the “Court of Public Opinions”

Yes, I’m beginning to understand. My mother is a rear view mirror image and my scream is as loud as that of the refugees! But nobody hears a sound because it’s a deafening silence outdoors. Heavy snow is covering it all, as it always does, as it always did in this place where “the ruins still there where I played as a child”

Gerald Thomas – boxing day – 2013.

Photo by Masha Frolyak

Um site engraçado pra quem é brasileiro:

http://desciclopedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Thomas

Looking forward to – ansioso por 2014

Photo by Masha Frolyak

Ney – Edi and Gerald rehearsing in New York

ISABEL DE LUCA
Publicado:
23/10/13 –

Ney Latorraca, Edi Botelho e Gerald Thomas, em Nova York: estreia em SP após o carnaval e temporada no Rio a seguir
Foto: Divulgação
Ney Latorraca, Edi Botelho e Gerald Thomas, em Nova York: estreia em SP após o carnaval e temporada no Rio a seguir Divulgação
NOVA YORK – Gerald Thomas sentiu no próprio corpo a internação da qual Ney Latorraca quase não voltou. Faz um ano depois de amanhã: Gerald chegou em casa sem conseguir respirar direito, desmaiou na cama e ouviu sua falecida mãe dizendo coisas que, logo soube, estavam acontecendo com o amigo — inclusive o nome do irmão do médico que operou a vesícula do ator e, por obra do acaso, estava presente na cirurgia. Quando Ney foi intubado, Gerald teve dor de garganta. Quando houve suspeita de trombose, teve dores na coxa. Quando o quadro se complicou, ligou para uma mãe de santo.
— Foram três dias enchendo bacia de água com sal feito um doido. Três dias acordado. Eu não tenho essa tradição, sou um cético total — ressalta o diretor. — A ironia é que eu, que nunca escrevi nada sobre ninguém incorporando nada, tinha esboçado uma coisa sobre o Ney incorporando a Rainha Victoria. E de repente lá estava eu, essa porcaria judaica, incorporando também.
Em 25 de outubro de 2012, Gerald estava estabelecido em Londres, de onde Ney acabara de voltar. Eles passaram dias dedicados justamente à leitura das 30 primeiras páginas da peça “Entredentes”. Agora, com Gerald morando novamente em Nova York e Ney recuperado, foram retomados os ensaios daquela que será a grande volta do ator aos palcos — num papel mediúnico e com a ação passada no Muro das Lamentações, em Jerusalém. A estreia será em São Paulo, após o carnaval, seguida de uma temporada no Rio.
— Eu quase morri. Pifou tudo. Só que não me lembro de nada, né? O Gerald recebendo uma entidade e eu lá, errr — diverte-se Ney, fazendo cara de desacordado, no apartamento do diretor, às margens do East River.
Gerald, Ney, Edi Botelho (ator da primeira formação da Cia. de Ópera Seca, em São Paulo, em 1986) e Daniela Visco (assistente de direção e atual mulher do diretor) estão ensaiando por dez dias num estúdio alugado em Manhattan, sempre das 16h às 20h. Em janeiro, a produção se intensifica com a mudança temporária de Gerald e Daniela para o Brasil, onde a atriz portuguesa radicada em Londres Maria de Lima se juntará ao elenco. É a terceira vez que Gerald dirige Ney — as outras foram em “Don Juan” (1995) e “Quartett” (1986) —, a primeira com um texto próprio. E, sendo assim, o casamento entre o real e a ficção caiu como uma luva. A peça, claro, mudou muito depois dos problemas de saúde de Ney, cujo personagem lá pelas tantas brada: “Eu entrei em coma, entrarei em coma quantas vezes for necessário!”.
— Desde 1985, quando dirigi o Julian Beck, existe uma coisa na minha vida que é o metateatro, a metalinguagem. O Julian estava morrendo de câncer e por acaso me escolheu para dirigir a última coisa que ele faria no palco. Não era o The Living Theatre (companhia de teatro que Beck fundou), eu fiz “The Dying Theatre”. E desde então houve uma série de casamentos metalinguísticos: Fernanda mãe e Fernanda filha (em “The flash and crash days”, de 1991), Marília Gabriela fazendo o papel de entrevistadora (em “Esperando Beckett”, de 2000)… — lembra Gerald.
Ney conta que quando teve alta e precisou encarar os fisioterapeutas, após quase dois meses praticamente imóvel, achou que não andaria mais. E diz que nunca vai esquecer a primeira vez em que, passado o susto, foi andar sozinho na Lagoa.
— Era 12 de março. Saí de shortinho e boné, dizendo que ia só até o homem do coco. Mas fiz a Lagoa inteira. Não andava em linha reta, ia assim, ó (ele percorre a sala em ziguezague). Eu estava muito magro — comenta ele, já de volta aos 77 quilos. — Chegaram a noticiar que eu morri. Até hoje, quando ando pela Lagoa, as pessoas se jogam no chão, o ônibus para. É uma comoção. Eu não sabia que era desse jeito. Foi um tal de gente ir pagar promessa em Aparecida… Depois de tudo isso, para mim, o que está valendo mesmo são as pessoas.
O mesmo vale para o trabalho.
— Nesta altura do campeonato, eu, que já estou para fazer 70 anos de idade e 50 de carreira, quero trabalhar com alguém que me acrescente alguma coisa, se não, eu prefiro ficar em casa. Eu ganho muito bem na Globo, sou contratado da emissora há 40 anos, tenho plano de saúde, sou muito respeitado na minha terra, então eu posso me dar ao luxo de dizer: eu quero trabalhar com o Gerald Thomas, com o Luiz Fernando Carvalho, eu quero ficar com a minha turma — ele avisa, carregando no estilo Ney Latorraca.
É pelas mãos de Luiz Fernando Carvalho que Ney vai voltar à televisão, em dezembro. O especial que dará origem à série “Alexandre e outros heróis” (adaptação do livro de contos de Graciliano Ramos) já foi gravado. Em novembro, serão rodados os nove episódios do programa:
— É como fazer teatro dentro da TV Globo. Você tem aula de canto e tudo, e decora aquele texto de 70 páginas como se fosse uma peça. Uma delícia.
Quanto a trabalhar com Gerald, ele destaca o que chama de “brecha jornalística”, que permite ao autor-diretor encaixar no texto temas quentes do noticiário:
— Tem esse frescor, o teatro do Gerald.
O imbróglio das biografias não autorizadas já está em “Entredentes” — cujo nome, o diretor avisa, ainda deve mudar —, numa cena em que Ney diz coisas como “A minha (biografia) pode publicar, viu? Sem problemas” e “Aqui (no Brasil) ninguém lê. A população é analfabeta. Por isso podem publicar o que quiserem. Não faz a menor diferença, entende?”.
— É o desejo de voltar a ter censura — posiciona-se o ator. — Daqui a pouco vão querer censurar matéria de jornal.
O assunto é de especial interesse para a turma: a biografia de Gerald assinada por Edi Botelho não pôde ser lançada, no ano passado, depois que um ex-ator da companhia do diretor entrou com uma notificação apontando “inverdades” no texto.
— Estamos esperando esse processo no STJ agora — diz Botelho.
Gerald, por sua vez, prepara um livro autobiográfico, “Let’s say it all started”, e um romance, “Lost case of a brief case”. Após anunciar que abandonara o teatro, em 2009, e voltar atrás criando a London Dry Opera Company — com a qual apresentou seu último espetáculo no Brasil, “Gargólios”, em 2012 —, hoje desativada, ele promete formar a New York Dry Opera Company até o fim do ano.

Leia mais sobre esse assunto em http://oglobo.globo.com/cultura/ney-latorraca-grande-volta-um-ano-apos-internacao-10491051#ixzz2ofHsadzI
© 1996 – 2013. Todos direitos reservados a Infoglobo Comunicação e Participações S.A. Este material não pode ser publicado, transmitido por broadcast, reescrito ou redistribuído sem autorização.

Um site engraçado pra quem é brasileiro:
http://desciclopedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Thomas

Facebook page for Entredentes:
https://www.facebook.com/events/579321005411799/

2013 – the year of the “viral-ME” – Have a Good One, Everyone!!!

What ‘viral’ meant in 2013

The iME who writes here belongs nowhere, belongs to nothing. Philip Glass was right. He was spot on when he called me a “all round theatrical being” (http://geraldthomas.net/h_philip-glass.html) And that’s what I am.

I see the world as THEM and never as “us”.

-THEM, the Germans.
-THEM, the English.
-THEM, the Brazilians.
-THEM, the Americans.

Yes, one could say that I am (South) American by choice, by …. by chance or by fate. Chance. L’azar. Azar in Portuguese means, bad luck.
“An all round bad luck theatrical being”. Ha ha!

I’m never included in the picture because I AM the stage. I look on, as they watch.

The stage is my face and my face is, mostly, a neutral place, a platform, from which to start.

My genitals are my rehearsal rooms, the backstage is my dick and ass and my mind is a comprehensive mosaic of the images unfolding and the spoken words, words, words.

I don’t really believe in people.

I do believe in characters, in how we all play a twisted and heroic role in this incredible attempt to “comprehend it all”, comprehend life, comprehend the science of a lifetime or a death sentence, depending on what one believes in or not. It’s all make belief. It’s all acting.

I DO Believe in Death.
This is it: the final days of the Year of the Selfie. It’s also the Year of the Snake on the Chinese calendar, appropriate if you consider the amount of times the internet nearly swallowed its own tail. 2013 was punctuated by news we couldn’t ignore. How we dealt with it as humans is still up for debate.
January

– “Humble heroes went viral
”When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers.”
This photo of Fred Rogers, a former preacher whose show Mister Rogers Neighborhood punctuated the school days of countless American children, was shared more than 90,000 times on Facebook during the wake of the Sandy Hook school
shooting. The sentiment attached was so simple it seemed too good to be true. But not everything that moves us is fake. -” “Katie Rogers”

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year everyone

Gerald Thomas

Fascinating –

Goodbye Nelson Mandela – as you’re laid to rest. We will never ever see a GRAND HERO again – not in my lifetime

Goodbye Nelson Mandela – the world grew up because of you and today, as you’re laid to rest, this same world will be just a tad less dignified. Rest in peace my GREATEST HERO ! I’ve been following you since my early days at Amnesty International in London when you were still a political prisoner. And, wow! How the world has changed BECAUSE OF YOU in these last 20 years – as you became the Leader of South Africa. Mandiba, I have nothing but praise for you, the GREATEST MAN ON EARTH, the great UNIFIER ! (let us not forget Steve Biko )

REST IN PEACE. AFTER ALL, peace is all you’ve ever stood for. We will never know peace ! But you have made me a better person.

Farewell, Nelson Mandela. See you soon (somewhere) because Super humans like yourself, always make a comeback.

Goodbye my leader, my brother, my mentor.

Humbly yours,

Gerald Thomas

Mandatory Viewing (or, how much we could ALL learn from this discussion)

Manifesto number 2 – Art speaks to God, Gismonti and Duchamp.

“Let’s say it all started” when I realized that ALL I do is stare out of my window and wonder.

So, it really starts at the end which is when out of the window I wonder and that’s really all I do. But a window is not an end.

Eyes, yes – eyes!

Why not end it with a HUGE ORGAN chord by Bach and say “Let’s say it all started” when I realized that ALL I do is stare out of my window and wonder.

Why not end it, ended, with the big bang sound of a HUGE ORGAN chord by Bach and say “Let’s say it all started” when I realized that ALL I do is stare out of my window and wonder
Why not end it with a HUGE ORGAN key, chain, chain-fuge, a ‘fugitive’ Bach and…. Riverrun Bach, brook a never ending flow.

Say, let’s say, let us say it all started when I realized that all I do is stare out of my window and wonder how to be a fugitive like Bach and Gismonti.

The best ART is and WAS in the name of GOD. From Bach to Philip Glass to Michelangelo to Schoenberg to Egberto Gismonti and Astor Piazzola and all the Requiems, music is (maybe) the way God communicates to us and with us and via us, employing means of disproportionate means like the blisters in the eye left by Picasso, Rothko and Bacon.

The best ART is and WAS name in the name of GOD. From Bach to Michelangelo and all the Requiems! Music is (maybe) the way God communicates to us, via some sketching by the great painters like Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Duchamp, Saul Steinberg and… So, now, for the sake of my own Failure, “Failure again and Failure better”. The inexistent verbal blood flow of the Irish… It’s enough to make one cry.

Why not end it with a HUGE ORGAN keychain by Bach and say Let’s say it all started when…

I realized that All I do is stare out of my window and wonder

I realized that All I do is stare out of my window and wonder

Why not end it with a HUGE ORGAN keychord by Bach on a berimbau and say “Let’s say it all started” when I realized that All I do is stare out of my window and wonder.

And the window from which I stare?

The window wonders back staring me in the eyes because what is it I see reflected in that window?

No, this is not a play of words. No puns.

Windows DO stare back because, in the 21st Century, each window looks on to another window. And at this OTHER window there is a self, a self just like myself, staring out and wondering.

TV … a window? So are our laptops and phones: all windows to the world placed right beneath our glass windows.

And while noticing the millions of eyes looking at nothing and contemplating TIME, time on earth, time passing us by on this earth I….

Myself. My face, my earth.

The window wonders back staring me in the eyes because what is it I see reflected in that window?

Myself and my face all along.

And what a lie that has been.

Goodbye.

Farewell and thank you for allowing me to exist – for a short while – amongst you.

Gerald Thomas

Gismonti:

December 10, 2013

THE END

Nelson Mandela: Egberto Gismonti + Silence, mourning and RESPECT.

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It’s an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realized. But, my Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Nelson Mandela.

Egberto – homage

Egberto + John McLaughlin

It is hard to eulogize any man — to capture in words not just the facts and the dates that make a life, but the essential truth of a person — their private joys and sorrows; the quiet moments and unique qualities that illuminate someone’s soul. How much harder to do so for a giant of history, who moved a nation toward justice, and in the process moved billions around the world.

Born during World War I, far from the corridors of power, a boy raised herding cattle and tutored by the elders of his Thembu tribe, Madiba would emerge as the last great liberator of the 20th century. Like Gandhi, he would lead a resistance movement — a movement that at its start had little prospect for success. Like Dr. King, he would give potent voice to the claims of the oppressed and the moral necessity of racial justice. He would endure a brutal imprisonment that began in the time of Kennedy and Khrushchev, and reached the final days of the Cold War. Emerging from prison, without the force of arms, he would — like Abraham Lincoln — hold his country together when it threatened to break apart. And like America’s Founding Fathers, he would erect a constitutional order to preserve freedom for future generations — a commitment to democracy and rule of law ratified not only by his election, but by his willingness to step down from power after only one term.

Given the sweep of his life, the scope of his accomplishments, the adoration that he so rightly earned, it’s tempting I think to remember Nelson Mandela as an icon, smiling and serene, detached from the tawdry affairs of lesser men. But Madiba himself strongly resisted such a lifeless portrait. Instead, Madiba insisted on sharing with us his doubts and his fears; his miscalculations along with his victories. “I am not a saint,” he said, “unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”

It was precisely because he could admit to imperfection — because he could be so full of good humor, even mischief, despite the heavy burdens he carried — that we loved him so. He was not a bust made of marble; he was a man of flesh and blood — a son and a husband, a father and a friend. And that’s why we learned so much from him, and that’s why we can learn from him still. For nothing he achieved was inevitable. In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness, and persistence and faith. He tells us what is possible not just in the pages of history books, but in our own lives as well.

If outside of my window it’s London, then this must be London

advertisement in the New York Times _ Beckett revival

This is where it belongs. Obviously there’s nothing to worry about.

From my damn Facebook posting

Great Britain is always the center of the world when it comes to figureheads like Ghandi and Mandela. Maybe Britain happens to be the crossroads of Satyagraha.

“I’ll call you later”, I say to my friends here in London.

“You don’t have to”, they reply in the most humble and insecure manner.

In America, this would prompt something along the lines of “Sure, I’ll be here!”.

A lifetime. My battle with London will never cease. It’s an enormous love that has been hurt. Yet, it’s there. London is in my heart more so than New York or Rio.

Yes, if only you knew me, reader, you’d know why.

“I’ll call you soon, London.”

“You don’t have to!”

Gerald Thomas
Dec 7, 2013