Jim Kates

Poetry Review: Yves Bonnefoy — A Provocative “Second Simplicity”

March 13, 2012
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This handsome edition of Yves Bonnefoy’s recent poetry and prose in English translation is a stunning presentation of a major poet.

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Book Review: Mahmoud Darwish — Palestinian Poet of Heritage and Exile

December 14, 2011
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Mahmoud Darwish, who died in 2008 at the age of sixty-seven, was best and heroically known for his complex perspective on political and spiritual borders — as both a poet and a spokesman for his Palestinian people.

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Theater Review: “The Lady With All the Answers” Makes for Predictable Drama

September 15, 2011
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“The Lady With All the Answers” presents the columnist Ann Landers as a person who just might write a letter to Ann herself. Her faith in herself and her work is unquestioned, even as her own life takes a bump or two. Well, really, only one bump.

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Theater Review: A Bright and Literate Version of the Darkly Comic “Measure for Measure”

September 1, 2011
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Director Gus Kikkonen and cast come up with a bright, literate presentation of William Shakespeare’s play “Measure for Measure,” a potentially dark comedy pregnant with power.

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Fuse Theater Review: “Doctor Knock” — Medicine as Flim-Flam Farce

August 18, 2011
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Anyone who has sat through a commercial for one pill or another will recognize and acknowledge the satiric thrust of this enjoyable 1920’s French farce.

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Theater Review: “Arms and the Man” — A Workmanlike Serving of a Shavian Confection

July 6, 2011
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There is nothing shocking, nothing sensational, nothing revelatory, in this workmanlike production of ARMS AND THE MAN. Nor should there be, as the play doesn’t give much room for innovation.

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Book Review: Of Childhood and State Terror

May 2, 2011
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Set in the beginning of the “Dirty War” of Jorge Rafael Videla’s military junta in Argentina, a period characterized by assassination and disappearance, “Kamchatka” is a superb novel that refracts public, political events through the sensibilities of everyday life. Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras. Translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne. Black Kat, Grove/Atlantic, 311 pages…

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