Robert Israel

Theater Review: Cirque du Soleil’s “Amaluna” — Spectacle and Sound Swamp Feminism

May 31, 2014
Posted in , ,

Women are the dominant force in “Amaluna.” They command the evening’s whirligig of a stage as aerialists, clowns, musicians, dancers, and contortionists.

Read More

Stage Review: Hershey Felder’s “Abe Lincoln’s Piano” — Hits Some Wrong Notes

May 23, 2014
Posted in , ,

“Abe Lincoln’s Piano” does not evoke in us the same sense of astonishment that Hershey Felder feels toward his antiquarian discoveries.

Read More

Fuse News: Hershey Felder — Back in Boston, This Time in “Abe Lincoln’s Piano”

May 17, 2014
Posted in

Pianist, actor, director and consummate storyteller Hershey Felder returns to Boston in a one-man show entitled Abe Lincoln’s Piano.

Read More

Fuse News: In Memoriam — Former HTC Artistic Director Nicholas Martin

May 2, 2014
Posted in

The late Nicholas Martin — an ebullient, mirthful spirit.

Read More

Theater Review: “The Wholehearted” — Ringside at a Troubled Psyche

April 22, 2014
Posted in , ,

What makes “The Wholehearted” compelling is how it examines the metaphor of fighting as both a pubic career and as an aspect of domestic violence.

Read More

Theater Review: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — Too Much Clutter, Too Little Poetry

March 8, 2014
Posted in , ,

All the prancing about onstage with planks of wood, actors climbing into eight-foot large puppet skeletons, is marvelous to behold, but it makes for an uneven, confusing production.

Read More

Theater Review: A Pitch Black “House/Divided”

January 31, 2014
Posted in , ,

“House/Divided” – a mélange of dazzling videography, startling and inventive lighting/props/stage craft, and spoken snippets of John Steinbeck’s quasi-Biblical prose – does not add anything new to our understanding of the current national malaise.

Read More

Theater Review: “Working, A Musical” — A Pleasantly Uneven Hymn to the Working Man

January 6, 2014
Posted in , ,

The challenges of this musical are to keep things buoyant yet insightful (and with some backbone) about a subject many of us dread, namely work and its drudgery.

Read More

Book Review: Hail to The Kid — Ted Williams

December 16, 2013
Posted in , ,

This expansive biography of Ted Williams is not awash in sentimentally, thanks to Ben Bradlee’s praiseworthy search for the facts, no matter where they lead, and his command of language, honed during his 25-year career as a reporter and editor at “The Boston Globe.”

Read More

Fuse Music Review: Boston Pops Orchestra and the Holiday Pops — Some Makeover Ideas

December 8, 2013
Posted in

Would it be all that nervy to ask if, in the coming years, there might be more, not less, musical experimentation? Couldn’t the Boston Pops commission a new seasonal work and showcase it?

Read More

Recent Posts