Arts Fuse critics select the best in film, theater, dance, music, visual arts, and author events for the coming week.

By The Arts Fuse Staff

Film

Boston Area Film Schedules—What is Playing Today, Where, and When

Chimes at Midnight, directed by Orson Welles.
May 16
Coolidge Corner Theater, Brookline, MA

An opportunity to see one of the finest cinematic treatments of Shakespeare. Welles’ focus on Falstaff, drawn from a number of the Bard’s plays, runs the gamut 00 from nostalgia for Merrie Olde England to realism in a gaunt battle scene in the rain. Of course, the predominate impression is that this is yet another exhilarating dramatization of Welles’ view of himself, a scallywag of genius, this time played in the key of poetic black comedy.

— Bill Marx

Hockney
May 21 – 29
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA

Hockney weaves together a portrait of the multifaceted artist from frank interviews with close friends and never-before-seen footage from his own personal archive. One of the great surviving icons of the 1960s, Hockney met with instant success, but in private he has struggled with his art, relationships, and the tragedy of AIDS. His optimism and enduring sense of adventure are truly uplifting. Hockney is funny, inspiring, bold, and visionary.

Tokyo Drifter
May 13 at 7 p.m.
At Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge, MA
May 19 at 7 p.m.
At the Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA

Through the eyes of Seijun Suzuki, the gangster film genre can go anywhere: the plot here (which can be hard to follow on a first viewing) includes a wild, disorienting discotheque number as well as a homage to the American western in the midst of an elaborate barroom brawl where prostitutes and yakuza rumble with U.S. sailors. Tokyo Drifter zigzags from the city’s neon nightlife to bucolic, snow-covered vistas; the narrative’s focus is on a recently paroled ex-con named Tetsu who tries to go straight — but the odds are against him. Hounded every step of the way by former gang members, business rivals, and cops, he follows his own code of honor which keeps him on the move, playing his enemies against each other while coming to the rescue of Chiharu, a victimized nightclub singer (played by real-life pop star Chieko Matsubara). (TCM)

This is part of “The Cinema According to Seijun Suzuki Series” at the Harvard Film Archive and there will be several screenings of the director’s work at the Brattle Theatre that will be well worth checking out. According to New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, “To experience a film by Japanese B-movie visionary Seijun Suzuki is to experience Japanese cinema in all its frenzied, voluptuous excess.”

Notfilm
May 20–23
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA

In 1964 author Samuel Beckett set out on one of the strangest ventures in cinematic history: his embattled collaboration with silent era genius Buster Keaton on the production of a short, untitled, avant-garde film. Beckett was nearing the peak of his fame, which would culminate in his receiving a Nobel Prize five years later. Keaton, in his waning years, never lived to see Beckett’s canonization. The film has been the subject of praise, condemnation, and controversy for decades. Yet the eclectic participants are just one part of a story that stretches to the very birth of cinema, and spreads out to our understanding of human consciousness itself.

This is the feature-length movie on FILM’s production and its philosophical implications, utilizing additional outtakes, never before heard audio recordings of the production meetings, and other rare archival elements. Screens with FILM (1965). (Brattle notes).

— Tim Jackson

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Dance

Next Generation
May 18 at 8 p.m.
Boston Opera House
Boston, MA

Boston Ballet presents its annual Next Generation show, featuring students of of the Pre-Professional Program, and dancers from Boston Ballet II, accompanied by the New England Conservatory Orchestra.

Prometheus Dance with Robert and Shana Parkeharrison
May 21 at 8 p.m.
Boston Conservatory
Boston, MA

Prometheus Dance ends its 6-day residence at the Boston Conservatory with an informal showing of new work by Tommy Neblett, Diane Arvanites, and visual artists Robert and Shana Parkeharrison.

Catapult: The Art of Shadow Dancing
May 21 at 3 p.m. & 8 p.m.
Company Theatre Center for Performing Arts
Norwell, MA

Seen on America’s Got Talent, Catapult’s eight dancers are masters of theatrical storytelling, transforming themselves into shadow figures that can take on a number of forms, from castles to dragons.

And further afield…

Mini Guinea Fest
May 21 from 12-9 p.m.
The Dance Hall
Kittery, ME

The Dance Hall celebrates its 5th anniversary with a performance of West African dance and drumming,  art forms that have been integral to the stage since it first opened.

— Merli V. Guerra

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Visual Art

The summer season is upon us. Look for seasonal openings, sometimes several at a time, over the next few weeks. This week, museums at Harvard, Yale, and MIT are among those weighing in.

N.C. Wyeth: Painter
May 21 – December 31
Hidden Treasures: The Cawley Collection of Archival Materials
May 21 – October 30
Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME

Back in the 1940s, when an improbable set of circumstances led to the creation of the Farnsworth as a museum of Maine-related art, the Maine works of N.C. Wyeth were among the first to enter the fledgling collection. Back then, N.C. was still known as a great American illustrator of the Golden Age of American illustration, not yet as the patriarch of three generations of Wyeth artists. The Farnsworth now owns one of the most significant collections of his work in the world. “N.C. Wyeth: Painter” draws on that collection to look back at man who consistently went above and beyond his job description, completing more than 3,000 paintings and illustrating some 112 books.

The late credit card magnate Charles Cawley, his wife Julie, and his firm MBNA are the donors of a number of Wyeth works to the Farnsworth collection. The show ”Hidden Treasures” is drawn from another important Cawley gift: a huge archive of Wyeth material the couple collected, especially things related to N.C. Wyeth. Illustrated books, magazines, exhibition catalogues, brochures, and more are among the previously hidden treasures on display.

Tala Madani: First Light
May 20 – July 17
Villa Design Group: The Tragedy Machine
May 20 – July 17
List Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA

Is she repaying the opposite sex for thousands of years of artistic abuse? Tala Madani, who was born in Tehran and moved to the United States as a teenager, has become well known for her paintings and animations of men placed in awkward, vulnerable, and downright humiliating circumstances. Some critics see the work as political, but Madani herself isn’t saying why she does what she does: “I always like to be quite vague when I talk about my work because I think the more you talk about something the less you see it.” She does add: “what I’m interested in is machismo, and we see that everywhere, in all cultures.”

Nothing if not ambitious, the London-based collective known as the Villa Group says that it seeks to create a “theater of design” inhabited by “queer objects.” Among the group’s passions are architecture, performance, and set design. This MIT exhibition-performance-residency includes three full-sized architectural installations, a collection of “sculptural” costumes, and the premiere (on May 21) of Villa’s latest theater piece, This Is It, or Dawn at the Bar Bazuhka, a play similar to Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh except the story has been moved from Greenwich Village to a gay nightclub on the Greek Island of Skiathos. What other transformations are in store?

Weaving and the Social World: 3,000 Years of Ancient Andean Textiles
May 20 – September 18
Le Goût du Prince: Art and Prestige in Sixteenth-Century France
May 20 – August 28th
Yale Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

The cultures of the ancient Andes valued their elaborately woven textiles so highly that when a member of the upper crust died, he was wrapped in layers of fabrics and buried with textiles as grave offerings. Preserved for thousands of years by the cool, dry high altitude climate, these works are now highly prized as art works for their complex geometric motifs and strong imagery, including Andean deities and animals. This Yale survey features tunics, mantles, and wall hangings shown with culturally related ornaments, tools, and ceramic vessels.

With the dawn of Francis I’s reign as King, France finally began to catch up on the Renaissance, already in full swing in Italy for more than a century. Importing talent from south of the Alps, this so-called “prince of arts and letters” embellished his sprawling château at Fontainebleau with everything from paintings to tableware in the latest taste and even hired Leonardo da Vinci to add luster and status to his court. “Le Goüt du Prince” (tastes of the prince) includes paintings, sculpture, prints, enamelwork, ceramics, and medals all exploring the French artistic revolution Francis began in the 16th century and took full form years later with France as the center of European culture.

Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt
May 21 – August 14
Prehistoric Pottery from Northwest China
May 21 – August 14
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA

As is often the case, Harvard’s summer shows this year feature shows drawn from the university’s nearly bottomless wealth of visual art. Neither one of the collection featured in this duet of shows is on regular view, so see them when you can.

“Drawings from the Age of Bruegel” encompasses 40 works from Harvard’s collection of Netherlandish, Dutch, and Flemish drawings from the 15th to the 18th centuries, one of the finest of its kind in the world. The outstanding draftsmen include Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Lambert Doomer, Jacques de Gheyn II, Hendrick Goltzius, Jan van Goyen, Maarten van Heemskerck, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, and Cornelis Vroom.

Meanwhile, “Prehistoric Pottery” brings together ancient Chinese ceramics from Harvard/s Peabody Museum and the Harvard Art Museums, some 60 pieces in all. Do not take “ancient” here to mean “crude”: these are accomplished, even virtuosic works by any measure, part of the foundation of the great culture that was to come.

Barbara Cooney: Drawing Biography
May 19 – August 28
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME
Louis Darling: Drawing the Words of Beverly Cleary
May 17 – November 27
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, MA

Two exhibitions open this week of special interest to museum visitors with smallish children in tow. Bowdoin’s Barbara Cooney exhibition draws on its permanent collection of the work of a beloved author and illustrator of more than 100 children’s books. The show features original sketches and manuscripts related to three of Cooney’s books: Miss Rumphius, Hattie and the Wild Waves, and Eleanor, all of which weave intricate biographies of vivid women.

Award-winning children’s author Beverly Cleary, who turned 100 just last month, has sold 91 million copies of her books worldwide since the first, Henry Huggins, appeared in 1950. Louis Darling is the man who first gave faces to such classic Cleary characters as Huggins, rival sisters Ramona and Beezus Quimby, and Henry’s dog, Robsy. Though he died young (in 1970), Darling is credited with helping to make the dozen Clearly stories he illustrated classics. The exhibition, which also celebrates Darling’s centennial, features sketches, press-ready artwork, correspondence between author and illustrator, and period photographs.

— Peter Walsh

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Theater

A Great Wilderness by Samuel D. Hunter. Directed by David Miller. Staged by the Zeitgeist Stage in the Plaza Black Box Theater at the Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, through May 21.

The plot intrigues: “Walt has devoted his life to counseling teenage boys out of their homosexuality at his remote Idaho wilderness camp. Pressured to accept one last client, his carefully constructed life begins to unravel with the arrival of Daniel. When Daniel disappears in the wilderness during a forest fire, Walt is forced to ask for help.” Arts Fuse review

Home of the Brave by Lila Rose Kaplan. Directed by Sean Daniels. Staged by the Merrimack Repertory Theatre at the Nancy L. Donahue Theatre, 50 East Merrimack Street, Lowell, MA, through May 15.

The world premiere of a farce “that follows senator Bernadette Spence (played by Boston favorite Karen MacDonald) as she desperately works to persuade her family to support her run for the Presidency. Loosely inspired by Moliere’s Tartuffe,” the script is an “old-fashioned comedy for new-fashioned times, wholeheartedly embracing sheer absurdity, shameless fun, and actors running/climbing/sliding all over the place.”

Raining Aluminum, written and performed by theatre KAPOW. At the Charlestown Working Theater, Charlestown, MA, on May 19 through 21. Also being presented: Czech and Slovak Tales with Strings, a show for families on May 21 at 2 p.m.

New Hampshire’s theatre KAPOW will take up residence at CWT next week, with public presentations of their newest work. It is “an original piece based on the parallel storylines of the 1917 explosion in Halifax, Nova Scotia (and the subsequent American relief efforts) and Halifax’s involvement in Operation Yellow Ribbon (the Canadian initiative to handle the diversion of civilian airline flights on 9/11). This will be the final preview presentation of the work before the premier in July, 2016. tKAPOW is thrilled to collaborate on this piece with the artists of Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre and world renowned Prince Edward Island fiddler, Cynthia MacLeod.”

Laura, adapted for the stage by George Sklar and Vera Caspary. Directed by Sarah Gazdowicz. At the Stoneham Theatre, 395 Main Street, Stoneham, MA, through May 22.

A stage version of Otto Preminger’s terrific 1944 film noir: “Everyone is a suspect in the murder of Laura Hunt, an irresistibly attractive business woman trying to make her way in the world of advertising. A hardboiled detective on the case becomes infatuated with her portrait after reading her memoirs and her closest friends don’t trust him.” I have my doubts that any actor come close to Clifton Webb’s consummate Waldo Lydecker?

In the Body of the World, written and Performed by Eve Ensler. Directed by Diane Paulus. Staged by the American Repertory Theatre at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA, through May 29.

A “world-premiere adaptation of Ensler’s critically acclaimed 2013 memoir of the same name” In this solo piece, the activist and artist (The Vagina Monologues, Emotional Creature, The Good Body, O.P.C.) “celebrates the strength and joy that connect a single body to the planet.” “While working in the Congo, where war continues to inflict devastating violence on women, Ensler was diagnosed with stage III/IV uterine cancer. This diagnosis erased the boundaries between Ensler’s art, her work, and her own body. This production charts the connections between the personal and the public, inviting and challenging all of us to come back into our bodies, and thus the world.”

Eyes Shut. Door Open. by Cassie M. Seinuk. Directed by Christopher Randolph. Staged by Wax Wings Productions at Warehouse XI, Union Square, Somerville, MA, through May 26.

A revival of Seinuk’s intriguing drama; about the play’s earlier production (in August 2015), Arts Fuse critic Ian Thal thought that “weak production elements [obscured] a powerful performance of an intensely relentless script.”

Freud’s Last Session by Mark St. Germain. Directed by Jim Petosa. Staged by New Repertory Theatre at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in the Charles Mosesian Theater, Watertown, MA, through May 22.

“The imagined meeting of two of the 20th century’s greatest academics, Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis.” In the cast: Shelley Bolman and Joel Colodner. Arts Fuse review

Mud Blue Sky by Marisa Wegrzyn. Directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary. Staged by Bridge Repertory Theater at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, through June 5.

The plot of this comedy: “three flight attendants approaching their retirement years find themselves on a typical layover, only to be joined in their hotel by Jonathan, the local teenage pot-dealer who has just left his hot date at the prom.” A sterling cast includes Deb Martin, Adrianne Krstansky, Leigh Barrett, and Kaya Simmons.

End of the World by Elizabeth DuPre. Directed by Drew Linehan Jacobs. Staged by Boston Actors Theater at the Rehearsal Hall A, Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, through May 21.

A no doubt minimal fireworks alternative to the upcoming aliens-try-to-obliterate-Earth Independence Day: Resurgence: “Objects hurtle towards the Earth all the time, and the team at the Near Earth Object Project is there to protect humans from meeting the same fate as the dinosaurs. But, when their latest attempt to stop a massive asteroid fails, the team (along with the rest of the planet) finds themselves facing their mortality a little sooner than they expected.”

Dogfight, based on the Warner Bros. film and screenplay by Bob Comfort. Music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Book by Peter Duchan. Directed by Paul Daigneaut. Staged by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Boston Center for the Arts, through June 4.

The Boston premiere of a musical set in the Vietnam era: “It’s November 21, 1963; and on the eve of their deployment to a small but growing conflict in Southeast Asia, three young Marines set out for one final boys’ night of debauchery, partying, and maybe a little trouble. But when Corporal Eddie Birdlace meets Rose, an awkward and idealistic waitress he enlists to win a cruel bet with his fellow recruits, she rewrites the rules of the game and teaches him the power of love and compassion.” Arts Fuse review

Peter and the Starcatcher by Rick Elice, based on the novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. Music by Wayne Barker. Directed by Spiro Veloudos. Music Director, Catherine Stornetta, Choreography by Ilyse Robbins. Staged by Lyric Stage of Boston, 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, MA, May 20 through June 26.

A prequel to Peter Pan: “An acclaimed new play (partly inspired by the theatricality of Nicholas Nickleby) that uses ingenious stagecraft, the talents of a dozen of our favorite actors, and the limitless possibilities of your imagination to create theatrical magic.” The show “chronicles the adventures of Molly, a girl charged to protect a cargo of stardust from falling into the wrong hands, and an orphan named Peter who eventually becomes The Boy Who Never Grew Up.” The cast includes some real pros — Margaret Ann Brady, Ed Hoopman, Margarita Martinez, Will McGarrahan, Marc Pierre, and Robert Saoud.

A Picasso by Jeffery Hatcher. Staged by the Newton Nomadic Theater at various locations in the Newton, MA area (see website) through May 21.

Theater on the run. This new company jumps its stagings from location to location. This time around the troupe will be performing Hatcher’s “tango of sex, politics and power”: “each week A Picasso will move to a new and unique performance space. Like nomads the world over, we never settle in any place for long. Join us for A Picasso in an art studio, a restaurant, a living room, a rug store, a library, a glass works or a pub.” I vote for the pub.

RoosevElvis, Created by the TEAM. Directed by Rachel Chavkin. Presented by the American Repertory Theater at Oberon, Cambridge, MA, through May 29.

“On a hallucinatory road trip from the Badlands to Graceland, the spirits of Elvis Presley and Theodore Roosevelt battle over the soul of the painfully shy meat processing plant worker, Ann, and over what kind of man or woman Ann should become. Set against the boundless blue skies of the Great Plains and endless American highway, RoosevElvis is a new work about gender, appetite, and the multitudes we contain.” Arts Fuse review

— Bill Marx

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Jazz

Yoko Miwa Trio
May 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

Over her long career in Boston, the Japanese-born pianist and composer Yoko Miwa has established her mainstream bona fides (roughly: Bill Evans, plus Oscar, Herbie, and McCoy) with keyboard command, a probing personal style, and yearning lyricism. She’s also turned out an extensive book of compelling original compositions while indulging her refreshingly idiosyncratic taste in covers (Aerosmith’s “Seasons of Wither” and the Velvet Underground’s “Who Loves the Sun” as a ballad medley). Her trio on this date includes bassist Brad Barrett and longtime collaborator Scott Goulding on drums.

Grace Kelly with David Sanborn
May 22 at 7 p.m.
Berklee Performance Center, Boston, MA.

Now 23, the former girl wonder of Boston jazz has a fine new album, Trying To Figure It Out, is appearing five nights a week with Jon Batiste & Stay Human on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and has been featured on the Amazon Prime TV series Bosch (based on the Michael Connelly character). Tonight she faces off with “special guest” David Sanborn, a formidable foil. Besides having chops to spare, Kelly has become an especially effective ballad-standard player and singer. She’s now old enough to know what those songs are about.

— Jon Garelick

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Classical Music

Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms
Presented by Back Bay Chorale
May 14 (at 7:30 p.m.) and 15 (at 3 p.m.)
Zeiterion Theater, New Bedford, MA (on Saturday) Sanders Theater, Cambridge, MA (on Sunday)

Bernstein’s fifty-one-year-young masterpiece shares the bill with, appropriately, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The New Bedford Symphony and soloists Karen Slack, Abigail Fischer, Yeghishe Manucharyan, and David Kravitz join the BBC, which is conducted by Scott Allen Jarrett.

All-American
Presented by A Far Cry
May 20, 8 p.m.
Jordan Hall, Boston, MA

The Criers close their ninth season with the brilliant Anthony Marwood as the soloist in Leonard Bernstein’s marvelous Serenade. Also on the docket is a new piece by Derek Bermel, and scores by Philip Glass and Mark O’Connor.

Call of the Outdoors
Presented by Concord Orchestra
May 20-22, 8 p.m. (2 p.m. on Sunday)
51 Walden Street, Concord, MA

Richard Pittman and his Concord Orchestra celebrate the season with music, new and old, inspired by the outdoors. There’s a new piece by Bernard Hoffer, plus some Copland, Smetana, Sousa, and Rogers & Hammerstein (in which the audience is invited to sing along).

Bach & Bernstein
Presented by Metropolitan Chorale
May 21, 8 p.m.
First Baptist Church, Newton Centre, MA

A curious combination here offers Bach’s cantata, Ich habe viel Bekümmernis, paired with excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s controversial theater piece, Mass. On this concert, the Chorale is also joined by members of the Handel & Haydn Society’s Vocal Artists Program.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Cantata Singers
May 20 at 8 p.m.
at the First Church Cambridge, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA

On The program: J.S. Bach’s Komm, Jesu, komm, Arvo Pärt’s Adam’s Lament (Boston Premiere), and J.S. Bach’s Lutheran Mass in A.

Spectrum Singers
May 21 at 8 p.m.
First Church Cambridge, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA

On the program: Gabriel Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine, op. 11 and Benedictus, Maurice Duruflé’s Quartre Motets sur des Themès Gregoriens, and Olivier Messiaen’s O Sacrum Convivium!
The guest organist will be Justin Thomas Blackwell.

Chameleon Arts Ensemble
May 21 at 8 p.m.
First Church in Boston, 66 Marlborough Street, Boston, MA
May 22 at 4 p.m.
Goethe-Institut, 170 Beacon Street, Boston, MA

A program entitled “songs of earth and sky.” The musical line-up: Ernest Bloch’s Baal Shem, Three Pictures of Chassidic Life for violin & piano, Elena Firsova’s Meditation in a Japanese Garden for flute, viola & piano, Olivier Messiaen’s Chants de terre et de ciel for soprano & piano, David Ludwig, Haiku Catharsis for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano & percussion, and Camille Saint-Saëns’s Piano Trio No. 2 in e minor, Op. 92.

Boston Camerata
May 22 at 3 p.m.
Cathedral Church of St. Paul, 138 Tremont Street, Boston, MA

The program is entitled “The American Vocalist.” “Camerata’s pioneering exploration of folk hymnody in the young Republic includes spiritual songs, hymns, and anthems in a vigorous and authentic homegrown manner. This style, recalling many elements of European early music, grew up in the singing schools of colonial New England, travelled South and West in the 19th century, and continues to live on thanks to a new generation of motivated singers in all parts of the country. This collaboration with the newly-renovated Cathedral Church of St. Paul includes singers from local parish choirs.”

— Susan Miron

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Rock, Pop, and Folk

Beach Slang with Potty Mouth, Dyke Drama, and The Fatal Flaw
Thursday, May 19 (doors 7 p.m., show 7:45 p.m.)
The Sinclair, Cambridge, MA

This Philadelphia quartet makes no secret of its love for The Replacements, which was crystal clear on its well-received 2015 debut album The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us. However, on the recent EP Here, I Made This For You, the band covers songs by bands as wide-ranging as Ride, Dramarama, and The Plimsouls. (Both of these releases are available on cassette, for those — like me –who have the means to play them.) The Things We Do’s running time is a mere 27 minutes, so Beach Slang’s show leaves plenty of time for three other groups to support them at The Sinclair on Thursday.

The AndersonPonty Band
Friday, May 20 (doors 7 p.m., show 8 p.m.)
The Cabot, Beverly, MA

French-born fusion violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and vocalist Jon Anderson (formerly) of the English progressive rock band Yes had been acquainted for several decades when—after a few years of touring together—they recorded the appropriately titled album Better Late Than Never in 2015. Given the namesakes’ mastery of their respective and somewhat kindred musical genres, The AndersonPonty Band’s Friday night performance at The Cabot should be mind-blowing in the best sense of the term.

Islands with Lushlife
Friday, May 20 (doors 10 p.m.)
Great Scott, Allston, MA

Having formed in 2005, Montreal’s Islands was reasonably prolific between 2006 and 2013, during which time it released five albums.This past Friday, the band more or less maintained its albums-per-year average by simultaneously releasing two new LPs. “This is not a double album, and these are not twins,” declares islandsareforever.com. “These are two very varied collection [sic] of songs; one a demented interpretation of pop music, with a focus on synthesizers and drum machines (This one is called Taste), and the other an attempt at rock n’ roll, with live-off-the-floor performances by the foursome. And a tap dancer on one track. (This one is called Should I Remain Here At Sea?).” My bet is that their show at Great Scott this Friday will leave less to be desired than their copyediting.

Cyndi Lauper and Boy George
Saturday, May 21 (7:30 p.m.)
Wang Theatre: Citi Performing Arts Center, Boston, MA

It would be easy to chalk up this pairing of two 1980s pop icons to a nostalgia-infused cash grab. That would be a grave error, as Cyndi Lauper and Boy George have always been far too visually challenging and aurally pleasing to ever succumb to mere disposability. Yes, their show together at Wang Theatre on Saturday will be a delightful trip down memory lane for those in attendance, but it will more likely than not also demonstrate that both are still as reliably sui generis as ever.

Upcoming and on sale:

Foundation of Funk (May 17, Paradise Rock Club); Hard Working Americans (May 18, Paradise Rock Club); Ruby Rose Fox (June 3, Middle East Downstairs); Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy (June 7, Regent Theatre); Diiv (June 7, The Sinclair); Modern English (June 7, Middle East Downstairs); Bearstronaut (June 10, The Sinclair); Cherie Currie (June 11, Brighton Music Hall); Buffalo Tom (June 11, Paradise Rock Club); The Jayhawks (June 13, Royale); John Doe (June 13, Atwood’s Tavern); Dungen (June 16, The Sinclair); Wye Oak (June 19, The Sinclair); Deerhoof (June 24, Brighton Music Hall); Dead Kennedys (June 25, Paradise Rock Club); Pere Ubu (June 27, Sinclair); And the Kids (July 7, The Sinclair); Guided By Voices (July 11, Paradise Rock Club); Sonny & The Sunsets (July 12, ONCE Ballroom); Wussy (July 13, Middle East Upstairs); Rhett Miller (July 16, ONCE Ballroom); Paul McCartney (July 17, Fenway Park); Super Furry Animals (July 24, The Sinclair); White Lung (July 30, Brighton Music Hall); Bryan Ferry (July 31, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Yes (August 4, Lynn Auditorium); Belly (August 9, Royale); X (August 15, Brighton Music Hall); Ani DiFranco (September 1 and 2, Shalin Liu Performance Center); Little Feat (September 8, Wilbur Theatre); Echo & The Bunnymen (September 8, House of Blues); The Specials (September 12, House of Blues); Pet Shop Boys (November 9, Orpheum Theatre); Peter Hook & The Light (November 26, The Sinclair)

— Blake Maddux

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Author Events

Marjorie Williams
Markets of Provence
May 18 at 7 p.m.
Porter Square Books, Cambridge MA
Free

Provence, France is famous for its food, wine, herbs, and a thriving marketplace. Williams takes you on a journey of taste through the most interesting items on the menu, helping brush up your French. She will bring samples of Whispering Angel wine from one of Provence’s most popular vineyards.

Jo Baker
A Country Road, A Tree
May 19 at 7 p.m.
Brookline Booksmith, Coolidge Corner MA
Free

Amid the breakout of war in Paris 1939, a young, unnamed Irish writer living in exile, struggling to put his absurdist vision down on the page, risks everything to resist the forces of fascism. Baker, a bestselling novelist, has fashioned an historically-informed tale of literature, resistance, and the early years of one of the great literary voices of the 20th Century.

Cass R Sunstein
The World According to Star Wars
Introduction by Jonanthan Zittrain
May 23 at 6 p.m. (Doors open at 5:30)
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA
$5 tickets

Who knew that the venerable law professor and public intellectual was a Star Wars superfan? Sunstein will discuss the world of Star Wars and how its legendary themes touch on eternally relevant issues: family, fate, good vs. evil, rebellion and the real meaning of The Force.

Moira Weigel
Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating
In Conversation with Meredith Goldstein
May 23 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA
Free

There’s been quite a bit of hand-wringing in the media about the end of dating, and the rules and routines of courtship have certainly changed with the times. Weigel is a PhD candidate at Yale who has been researching the new trends in dating with a feminist approach that emphasizes how our look for love changes who we are.

Ari Rabin-Havt and Media Matters for America
Lies, Incorporated: The World of Post-Truth Politics
May 24 at 7 p.m.
Brookline Booksmith, Coolidge Corner, MA
Free

Now that Trump has effectively secured the presidential nomination, the fact that he has yet to actually offer anything in the way of substance says a lot about our current low standards of political rhetoric. The experts at Media Matters for America round up some of our most egregious examples of truth-free political claims on topics ranging from heath care to climate change.

— Matt Hanson