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Oh connoisseurship, what hath thou wrought? By Gary Schwartz Until June 27, a small exhibition of irresistible charm and interest is being held in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, after a run at the Rubenshuis in Antwerp: Willem van Haecht: room for art in 17th-century Antwerp. Van Haecht was one of the great masters of…
Read MoreJoining snow blowers, the goaltending mask, peanut butter, and Pamela Anderson on the list of indispensable life-saving things from Canada, the New Pornographers have solidified their position on the charts with the release of their latest album. As far as Indie-pop goes, you won’t find another band associated with the label “Supergroup” as often as…
Read MoreThe narrative turns out to have the blandly cheerful tone and slightly stilted prose of an official biography: the sort of thing with the CEO’s picture on the cover, given out at stockholders meetings. Chuck Close: Life, by Christopher Finch. Prestel, 352 pages, $34.95. Reviewed by Peter Walsh In these media-saturated, image-obsessed times, every public…
Read MoreWorking with Bernstein: A Memoir by Jack Gottlieb. Amadeus Press, 370 pages, $24.99. Reviewed by Caldwell Titcomb A strong case can be made that the late Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was the all-round greatest musician our country has produced—virtuoso pianist, composer of both classical and popular music, the most charismatic conductor of his century, acclaimed educator…
Read MoreAs a theatrical event, The American Stage anthology would have to be classified as a rousing vaudeville show: there are literary routines for all brows—high, middle, and low. The American Stage: Writings on Theater from Washington Irving to Tony Kushner, edited by Laurence Senelick, Library of America, 867 pages, $40. By Bill Marx “There is…
Read MorePerhaps independent music’s biggest “it” band right now, The National have recently released their fifth album, and appear on the brink of crossing the threshold from well-kept secret to mainstream sensation, if their recent back-to-back sold out shows at Boston’s House of Blues are any indication. By Justin Marble In college, I took a comparative…
Read MoreBy Helen Epstein Shakespeare & Company’s new director Tony Simotes is in his last week of radiation and chemotherapy for throat cancer in Boston, but he was in the Berkshires this weekend to preside over the first read-through of Richard III.
Read MorePerhaps the inspirational cliches, by-the-numbers storyline, and fan cartoon hijinks are what’s expected in a baseball musical. Johnny Baseball, Music by Robert Reale, Lyrics by Willie Reale, Book by Richard Dresser. Story by Dresser and Reale. Directed by Diane Paulus. Staged by the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, MA, through July…
Read MoreMusings on the history, shapes, and ubiquity of donuts on the occasion of the holiday. By Sally Levitt Steinberg National Donut Day (the first friday in June) falls under the sign of Gemini, the sign of divided souls, and so it is not surprising that the donut leads its own divided life. We love ‘em,…
Read MoreAnd why [are] men bound beneath the heavens in a reptile form/ A worm of sixty winters creeping on the dusky ground? — Tiriel, William Blake Metropolis. Directed by Fritz Lang. Written by Lang and Thea Von Harbou. With Gustav Fröhlich, Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Erwin Biswanger, Theodor Loos, Fritz Rasp, and Heinrich…
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