Newsletter: Essential Arts and Culture: A passport, a pipeline, bronzes and ‘Bent’

I’m Kelly Scott, arts and culture editor of the Los Angeles Times, and and here is what our writers and critics explored over the last week:

She never lets up

Some of us still remember when Anna Deavere Smith was researching "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," a look at the city after the Rodney King beating, the acquittal of policemen charged with beating King and the subsequent civil unrest. Research for the project, commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum to capture that moment, brought her to The Times, often talking with former editor Shelby Coffey, who became a character in "Twilight." That was then, this is now: Smith has taken on the "school-to-prison pipeline" in a new work called "Notes From the Field: Doing Time in Education, the California Chapter." Her characters are teachers, principals, former inmates, state officials and others who see a disturbing link between the failure of public schools and the steep rise in incarcerated black men. She talked about the work's relevance with Times theater critic Charles McNulty after it premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. "Since I started working on this project," she said, "you could almost have a film festival of short videos of police attacking African Americans."

Anna Deavere Smith in San Francisco on July 16, 2015.

(Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Anna Deavere Smith in San Francisco on July 16, 2015. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

His bags are packed, he's ready to go

Noted Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei posted on Instagram a sweet reunion last week: Ai and his passport. For four years, he has been unable to leave the country, even as his work traveled the world, including an acclaimed exhibition on Alcatraz. Ai was detained in 2011 for 81 days, and his passport was confiscated upon his release. It had looked unlikely that he would be able to see a major exhibition of his work at the Royal Academy of Art in September. That changed with his passport's return, and the art world rejoiced.

Another little piece of her ... larynx

Mary Bridget Davies has drawn raves for her all-out performance as the late blues-rock singer Janis Joplin wherever "A Night With Janis Joplin," now back at the Pasadena Playhouse, has played. (David C. Nichols reviewed it in 2013.) But seriously: How can you sing with that much intensity and live to sing another day? There are lozenges and special tea involved. Another factor is that Davies sings six instead of all eight shows a week; the two other nights, Kacee Clanton plays Joplin. (Mike Boehm discovered by looking at janisjoplin.net that Joplin herself rarely sang more than two or three nights in a row — smart lady.) "I'd rather do six kickass shows," Davies told Boehm, than press her luck with more.

Kacee Clanton, left, and Mary Bridget Davies portray the singer in the play “A Night With Janis Joplin.”

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Kacee Clanton, left, and Mary Bridget Davies portray the singer in the play “A Night With Janis Joplin.” (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

'I understand sometimes more than people think'

The day before Gustavo Dudamel walked out on the Hollywood Bowl stage to begin his two weeks of concerts with the L.A. Phil, our Mark Swed spent some time listening, talking to and riding along with him. Dudamel was just back from Caracas, Venezuela, and the El Sistema experience was fresh in his mind. He will never stop working with the organization, he says, no matter who calls him out for his alliance with the unpopular Maduro government. "Now that I'm an adult, now that I'm a father, I understand the world a little better. And I understand sometimes more than people think I understand..." he told Mark. "When you are in a turbulent situation, you have to see beyond the turbulence instead of putting more things in the turbulence."

Gustavo Dudamel puts his whole body into Tuesday’s concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Gustavo Dudamel puts his whole body into Tuesday’s concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Thirty-six years later, ready for its close-up

Michael Ritchie of Center Theatre Group says he has wanted to stage a revival of the Martin Sherman drama "Bent" ever since he saw it on Broadway in 1979. Once director Moises Kaufman ("The Laramie Project," "I Am My Own Wife") was interested, it was a go. "Bent" takes place largely in Dachau, at one point merely a detention camp where Nazis locked up undesirables such as Max, a Weimar-era bon vivant and gay man. It's strange: "Bent" hasn't been seen in a major theater since 1979. The play predates Broadway's embrace of works with gay themes and issues. "I think people were afraid of it," Sherman tells Deborah Vankin. Now, of course, it's a different era.

Playwright Martin Sherman, left, and director Moises Kaufman at the Mark Taper Forum.

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

Playwright Martin Sherman, left, and director Moises Kaufman at the Mark Taper Forum. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

All the better bronzes will be there

The Getty Museum in Brentwood and not the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades (the museum's lighting is better) will host an exhibition of Hellenistic bronze sculpture — one quarter of such bronzes known to exist — for a show titled "Power and Pathos." These bronzes exist because of circumstances like volcanoes (as in Vesuvius) and stormy and pirate-infested seas and come from places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the British Museum, the Prado and the Louvre. "Many are national treasures or highlights of a museum," curator Kenneth Lapatin says. "All of what we have survived by chance, and we're lucky to have it."

A statue of Alexander the Great is among the prized pieces in “Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World” at the Getty Center in Brentwood.

(The J. Paul Getty Museum /)

A statue of Alexander the Great is among the prized pieces in “Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World” at the Getty Center in Brentwood. (The J. Paul Getty Museum)

In short

Louis and Keely: Live at the Sahara" lives! And returns to the Geffen Playhouse in December ... Artist and film director Steve McQueen ("12 Years a Slave") and Kanye West collaborate at LACMA ... Times book critic David Ulin remembers the work of novelist E.L. Doctorow, who died last week.

Coming up

Meet the creative team of the year's biggest Broadway opening, Lin-Manuel Miranda and the crew behind the rap musical "Hamilton." ... Two L.A. Phil concerts conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, one an evening of Mendelssohn, the other all Mozart .... Eric Idle helps adapt the Monty Python musical "Spamalot" for the Hollywood Bowl next weekend.

What we’re reading

The politics of San Francisco's housing crunch — and a thoughtful response. –Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic

Charleston, South Carolina, native Jack Hitt has some interesting thoughts about the Confederate memorials all over the South — plus the one on, of all places, Martha's Vineyard. –Christopher Knight, art critic

Fun conversation with New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl about being "The Feeler" among critics, maturing in his writing and swearing by Getrude Stein's wisdom, "Description is explanation." –Bret Israel, Sunday Calendar editor

What we're watching and listening to

Plácido Domingo will celebrate the 40th anniversary of his Salzburg Festival debut with a gala concert at this summer's event on Thursday that will be streamed live at 9 a.m. PDT on Bavarian Radio's classical channel, BR Klassik. Domingo will be joined by sopranos Krassimira Stoyanova, Maria Agresta and Ana María Martínez and tenor Rolando Villazón in a program of arias and duets. Gianandrea Noseda conducts the Munich Radio Orchestra. –Mark Swed, music critic

Follow me on Twitter at @kscottLATarts.