While some of us are basking in an all-William-Kentridge-all-the-time moment, the matter of who and/or what killed Caravaggio demands our contemplation as well. Granted, this is a 400-year-old mystery, yet it made a strong bid for renewed attention this week, notably with Stacy Meichtry's terrific Wall Street Journal piece on Silvano Vinceti, the Italian TV host who's leading the charge to dig up as many graves as necessary in order to find the artist's ancient bones. (Footnote: "Mr. Vinceti recently announced plans to unearth Leonardo da Vinci. His goal: debunk claims that the Mona Lisa is a self-portrait of the painter and, if possible, prove he was a vegetarian--a hunch Mr. Vinceti has had for years." So: Get your shovels ready for that.)

As Michael Day reports in The Independent, "researchers from the universities of Ravenna and Bologna have prepared DNA tests on the corpses in a Tuscan crypt that many believe contains [Caravaggio's] remains. They have already narrowed their investigation down to nine corpses, which have been sent to Ravenna for carbon-dating."

Reuters' Marie-Louise Gumuchian duly visits the Italian town of Caravaggio, where "a team of Italian anthropologists" went this week to conduct DNA "tests with possible descendents -- some of them carrying derivations of the family name. As Caravaggio died childless the team looked for the painter's closest blood descendents in search of a match."

Meanwhile, in The New York Times, Michael Kimmelman largely ignores the quest for the artist's remains in favor of discussing his work -- including the argument that "Caravaggio has gradually, if unevenly, overtaken Michelangelo."

"It's a two-hour version with no intermission, and it's very action-packed," said Mr. Burdman, who's directing the play. Audiences will be able to get in on the action to some extent by following the show as it moves around the center. "Wear comfortable shoes," Mr. Burdman said. "We've got seven flights of stairs." NYT 3/5/2010

This New York Times excerpt is from a story about a New York Classical Theater production of "Hamlet" directed by the company's artistic director Stephen Burdman. The show is in rehearsal for its opening in April at the World Financial Center, a sprawling space in Lower Manhattan. But the excerpt also tells us a little something about the increasing power of audience participation in live theater - in its process and performance. It's the age of the video games and reality TV, after all, and we want live theater to be engaging not only of our minds but of our bodies, too. We want to be stakeholders in the narrative. Theatergoers and even passersby who witness a sword fight between two Danes downtown should not be alarmed. It's just art. And on the night of the show, you can fully expect to use those comfortable shoes to "get in on the action."

Live theater is now a performance event for everyone!

In Cambridge, Mass., where I live, American Repertory Theater's artistic director Diane Paulus has put muscle into audience participation. Last year, she re-staged her crowd-inclusive "Donkey Show"; it's now running indefinitely in the theater's annex space where nearly nightly crowds turn out to dance alongside the "Midsummer Night's Dream"-cum-Studio 54 disco cast. One addict apparently has seen the show 30 times. (I've been three times.)

Ooh, I do like this (by David Cote in the Guardian online, as posted on Artsjournal):

We critics, reviewers, consumer reporters - call us what you will - are the dung beetles of culture. We consume excrement, enriching the soil and protecting livestock from bacterial infection in the process. We are intrinsic to the theatre ecology. Eliminate us at your peril.

Me, I have a somewhat more elevated image of the critic's role -- something to do with celebrating art in all its diversity, having a vision of what art really is (as opposed to what pedants claim it to be) and what it might become, helping others share my enthusiasms, and such. But lively writing is lively writing, and Cote wrote lively.

I am told that Time magazine used to call the paragraph conveying a story's news peg "the billboard graf," or sometimes the "why am I at this party" graf. So in this first posting, in the spirit of billboard grafs, I will follow Larry Blumenfeld's lead, and try to explain why I am here.

For a number of reasons, I've spent the last year immersed in education reporting, so it's nice to be back here thinking and talking about the arts. These two worlds intersect in critical ways, as today's kids are tomorrow's artists. I don't know about you, but my best school daze memories have nothing to do with the rote drills or the bubble tests. Chemistry? Feh. I only remember the teacher screaming at me when I picked up a pile of lye pellets because I thought they were pretty. But I do remember field trips to Lincoln Center, where we worked backstage with a director I would later interview. Physics is fuzzy, but I fondly recall finger painting in kindergarten and writing angst-ridden poetry in a class led by a teacher who didn't make fun of my adolescent musings.

I was reminded of this the other night during the Oscars when Michael Ciacchino won for his original score for "Up." He skipped the usual shout-outs to agents and higher powers and, instead, went right back to the beginning.

I was nine and I asked my dad, "Can I have your movie camera? That old, wind-up 8 millimeter camera that was in your drawer?" And he goes, "Sure, take it." And I took it and I started making movies with it and I started being as creative as I could, and never once in my life did my parents ever say, "What you're doing is a waste of time." Never. And I grew up, I had teachers, I had colleagues, I had people that I worked with all through my life who always told me what you're doing is not a waste of time. So that was normal to me that it was OK to do that. I know there are kids out there that don't have that support system so if you're out there and you're listening, listen to me: If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It's not a waste of time. Do it. OK?

Not long ago, you were one of the most prolific freelance book critics in the United States. Now, after a stint as Granta's American editor, you've left New York for London, where you have the top spot on Granta's masthead. Being a freelance critic for (mostly) American newspapers and being the editor of a British literary magazine demand very different skill sets, maybe not so much intellectually as organizationally and socially. How have you made the transition?

That's right -- you could say the Americans and the English are divided by a common language. And not just the words. But I've quite enjoyed it. Granta's history has always been hybrid: an English literary magazine, resurrected by Americans, embraced by the English, and populated by writers from Ingo Schulze to Milan Kundera with of course generous contributions by the profoundly talented British and American novelists who have grown up with us. I think those moments of cultural friction are actually what give the magazine its distinct feel and texture. Managing that and making it into art, rather than something disjointed, is a much bigger challenge than figuring out when it's my turn to buy the round at a pub.

When a publication lays off a batch of key employees, the editor has to say something in an attempt to soothe the staffers who remain. Still, as reassurances go, "Today's changes won't be noticed by readers" is unlikely to pass muster. That's what editor Tim Gray told the survivors at troubled Variety yesterday after he laid off chief film critic Todd McCarthy, chief theater critic David Rooney, film critic Derek Elley and "features editor/indie film reporter Sharon Swart, along with several copy and design desk employees," according to TheWrap.

Even if the three critics take Gray up on his offer to let them continue as freelancers, there's no question that readers will notice the difference. Using what has become boilerplate language for media industry budget cutters, Gray told survivors in a memo, "Our goal is the same: To maintain, or improve, our quality coverage." A laudable ambition, but firing people is a thoroughly unrealistic way of attempting to reach it, as editors and publishers well know. What's remarkable is that, as long as they're dealing in fantasy, they don't come up with better talking points.

The issue is not solely one of skilled, experienced critics being cut loose -- though McCarthy, a 31-year veteran of Variety, speaks eloquently to that in an interview with Sharon Waxman. There's also the matter of what happens behind the scenes. Newspapers never have had fact-checkers as such, but good editors and copy editors serve that function, and they've saved many a writer's butt from inaccuracies, inadvertently libelous statements, and general sloppiness. Of course, it helps immensely when those editors know the writers, and therefore know what to look out for. With fewer editors, and freelancers rather than staff writers, the holes in the safety net get larger, and the publication suffers. That can get expensive. For a current case study from a related industry, see publishing's "The Last Train From Hiroshima" debacle.

The version of The Tempest that is now playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music -- part of the Anglo-American "Bridge Project" directed by Sam Mendes -- has an excellent Prospero, and that is just about the only reason it is tolerable.

Given the general cluelessness of the acting, with line readings that are either unintelligible or downright silly, I suspect that Stephen Dillane arrived at his interpretation of his role with little or no directorial help. He has chosen to portray Prospero as a kind of world-weary, supernaturally inclined Beckett tramp, alternating between prolonged periods of reflectiveness and brief sudden rages. His delivery of Shakespeare's marvelous words is at once rueful and forceful, and his diction can be understood on every line, even when he whispers. It is a joy to hear him step forward with that final speech in which he asks to be freed from his imprisonment by the audience's applause; it is always a joy to hear this speech, if it is finely delivered, and in this case the request seems even more pointed than usual.

This week's links to NAJP members' work:

Charles Aaron on the death of Barry Hannah (Spin)
Laura Bleiberg reviews the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (Los Angeles Times)
Larry Blumenfeld on Robin D. G. Kelley's "Thelonious Monk" (ListenGood)
Robert Campbell on an urban paradox embodied (The Boston Globe)
Robert Christgau on Dessa's "A Badly Broken Code" (msn.com)
Laura Collins-Hughes on Gina Welch's "In the Land of Believers" (Los Angeles Times)
Lily Tung Crystal on Asian-American actors in the Bay Area (American Theatre)
Francis Davis on Dee Dee Bridgewater and Stephanie Nakasian (The Village Voice)
Sasha Frere-Jones on Bill Withers (The New Yorker)
Matthew Gurewitsch goes nose to Nose with William Kentridge (The New York Times)
Matthew Gurewitsch reviews a Karajan documentary (Pundicity, courtesy Opera News)
Christopher Hawthorne on the death of Raimund Abraham (Los Angeles Times)
John Horn on documentaries and the Oscar effect (Los Angeles Times)
Ann Hornaday on Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's collaboration (The Washington Post)
Marty Hughley profiles Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Bill Rauch (The Oregonian)
Marty Hughley on the revival of ARTicles (The Oregonian)
Ann Powers reviews Jimi Hendrix's "Valleys of Neptune" (Los Angeles Times)
Craig Seligman on St. Clair McKelway (The New York Times)
Laura Sydell on unsigned musicians flocking to ASCAP (NPR)
Laura Sydell on Spotify's impending U.S. launch (NPR)
Werner Trieschmann on Rogue Wave (Nashville Scene)
Jerome Weeks interviews Lou Reed about his landscape photography (KERA, Dallas)
Jerome Weeks talks theater with Mike Daisey (KERA, Dallas)

I have had the good fortune to be invited three years in a row to the Festival of Authors, put on by the grass-roots organization, Literary Women of Long Beach, CA. Envision this: 730 women in a football-field-size ballroom at the Long Beach Convention Center, listening to women authors talking about the intersections of their writing and personal lives.

It is reassuring, and somewhat amazing, that this is a difficult and prized ticket to get your hands on; an Oscar after-party is probably easier to sneak into. I arrived "early" at 8 a.m. Saturday to make sure I could get a table for my party of eight, and despaired when I saw there were hundreds ahead of me. Luck was with me, this time, and I managed to score a table.

It's always a long day. Happily, this year's authors had differing styles and wonderful stories to relate. The four headliners were: Joan Silber ("The Size of the World"), who started with her bookworm childhood (a common theme) and her writing process; Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison ("An Unquiet Mind" and "Nothing Was the Same"), a memoirist and psychiatrist who often addressed her bi-polar disorder; Jane Hamilton ("A Map of the World" and "Laura Rider's Masterpiece"), whose talk - "Is life tragic or comic?" - was a clothesline on which to hang hilarious tales about fighting Wal-mart, a sex show on HBO, and other absurdities; and Jincy Willett ("The Writing Class"), who read the opening chapter of her work-in-progress. The large group split into three for lectures by first-time novelists Jennifer Cody Epstein, Padma Viswanathan and Debra Dean. Book were sold in a separate room. Lunch was chicken salad, rolls and a chocolate-covered strawberry confection.