David Macaulay: The Art of Drawing Architecture at the National Building Museum, the first retrospective devoted to the work of architect-turned-illustrator David Macaulay, may be the last of its kind. The types of artistic, handmade sketches created by the 60-year-old Mr. Macaulay are becoming obsolete as a younger generation of architects increasingly relies on computer-aided drafting, or CAD, to draw and design — and in the process loses architecture’s most basic creative skill: doodling as a way of pondering space. Mr. Macaulay’s gee-whiz dissections of domes, minarets, bridges and entire cities clearly captures the sense of discovery that comes with sketching. Much of the liveliness of these ink drawings would be lost if they had been sanitized on the computer. 401 F St. NW. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Through Jan. 21. Free. 202/272-2448.
— Deborah K. Dietsch
Screening Shakespeare, an extended survey of Shakespearean productions on film and television at the Mary Pickford Theater, reaches the Kenneth Branagh phase this weekend. Mr. Branagh’s magnificent 1989 film version of Henry V will be revived tonight at 7 p.m. in the Pickford, the resident repertory theater of the Library of Congress. It’s followed on Tuesday at 7 p.m. by Oliver Parker’s 1995 Othello, co-starring Mr. Branagh as Iago and Laurence Fishburne as the Moor. Mr. Branagh’s uncut Hamlet, released in 1996, will be shown on Aug. 10 at 5:30 p.m.
Two versions of Twelfth Night from the late 1990s can also be compared within a week of Pickford viewing. The 1996 British film directed by Trevor Nunn, with his wife Imogen Stubbs as Viola, Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia, Ben Kingsley as Feste and Nigel Hawthorne as Malvolio, screens Aug. 9 at 7 p.m. A “Live from Lincoln Center” TV version of 1998 directed by Kirk Browning is the selection for Aug. 16, also at 7 p.m. The principals included Helen Hunt as Viola, Kyra Sedgwick as Olivia and Philip Bosco as Malvolio.
The Pickford Theater is in the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. SE. All screenings are free, but seating is limited to about 60 patrons. Phone reservations can be made a week in advance of any given show. 202/707-4604.
— Gary Arnold
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