Jim Kates

Book Review: Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” — A Translation That Respects the Nuances

December 6, 2014
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Marian Schwartz’s careful translation of Anna Karenina is exquisitely mindful of the book’s complex linguistic texture.

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Theater Review: “A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline” — An Enjoyable Homage to a Legend of Country Music

September 4, 2014
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A Short Walk with Patsy Cline leaves you wanting more. It will send you — back or for the first time — to Cline’s own recordings.

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Theater Review: “The Voysey Inheritance” — A Masterpiece About Fraud, Capitalism, and Family

August 21, 2014
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The Voysey Inheritance comes to the Peterborough Players with distinction, and this production is persuasive evidence that it belongs in a wider repertory of contemporary theater.

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Theater Review: Somerset Maugham’s “The Circle” — Drawing-room Comedy Presented with Aplomb

August 7, 2014
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Gus Kaikkonen has shown himself particularly adept at directing period pieces in such a way that they don’t bog down in their period, but convey the life of their own time into our own.

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Theater Review: “The Granite State” — Good, Not Great, Entertainment for a Summer’s Eve in New Hampshire

July 24, 2014
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Charles Morey’s new comedy focuses on the trials and tribulations of aging writers. Most of its humor revolves around the past, while its plot hinges on the present and future.

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Theater Review: “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” — Comic Froth Infused With Gravity

July 10, 2014
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Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers wears surprising well after nearly half a century, with the help of minimal, subtle updating of topical references.

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Poetry Review: Translations of Two Wild Russian Poets, Their Flair Restored

May 14, 2014
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New translations of Soviet-era poets Vladimir Mayakovsky and Vladislav Khodasevich ask us to restore them to their rightful places in Russian and international literature .

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Theater Review: A Stimulating “Tea for Three”

September 19, 2013
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Each different personality and monologue tells essentially the same story under their varying details, a thrice-told tale of wifely loyalty in the face of political husbandry.

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Theater Review: Peterborough Player’s “Talley’s Folly” — Embraceable Jew

September 5, 2013
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The pleasure of Talley’s Folly is in its details, the give-and-take of the dialogue, the smaller and larger revelations they tease out of each other, the characterization of the two human creatures dancing their dance.

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Theater Review: An Exuberant and Dark “Absurd Person Singular”

August 23, 2013
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Alan Ayckbourn’s Absurd Person Singular is a comedy of total narcissism — belly-laugh jokes accompanied by a cold cruelty.

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