Charlie Chaplin's THE RINK
June 26, 2015 - Charlie Chaplin gracefully skated around a roller rink, turning a comic chase into slapstick ballet. Buster Keaton played 20 different characters in the same show within a dream within a theater within a film. On Sunday afternoon, Orchestra New England treated New Haven audiences to two highlights from the silent film era, Charlie Chaplin’s The Rink (1916) and Buster Keaton’s The Play House (1921), animating each film with authentic live musical accompaniment.
One of the handful of film-related events featured in this year’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Orchestra New England’s silent movie concert offered the crowded auditorium at the Cop-op Arts and Humanities High School on College Street a diversity of entertainment, from family-friendly laughs to historically accurate sounds to a rare opportunity to remember and celebrate the comic genius of two seminal figures from the early years of the movies.