(from the New York Times, May 20, 2007)
An Actor Out Standing in His Field
By SALLY McGRANE

Joachimsthal, Germany

On a cloudless, unseasonably warm spring Saturday a smattering of applause broke out as the American actor David Barlow came trudging over the slight incline in a one-and-a-quarter-acre field in this town in the rural, former East German region of Brandenburg. Wearing the period costume of a 1950s East German farmer, Mr. Barlow, whose last role was as Edgar in the Kansas City Repertory Theater’s production of “King Lear,” carried a six-foot, four-pronged wooden Reihenzieher, a kind of giant rake used for making seed rows in the absence of tractors or horses. When he reached the end of the field, Mr. Barlow paused, raised the instrument over his head and swung it to the ground. The applause intensified. Without a word Mr. Barlow began the project that would consume the next several hours: dragging the rake up and down the entire field.