This version of “La Belle et la Bête” never commits to a through-line about how its metaphors and rich visual imagery are supposed to operate.
Review
Visual Arts Review: Artist Paul Klee — Philosophical Thinker?
The enduring aspect of Paul Klee’s art is its playfulness, which bubbles up even out of this viscous curatorial treatment.
Judicial Review # 9: Pushing Hot Buttons — David Mamet’s “Race” @ New Rep
What is a Judicial Review? It is a fresh approach to creating a conversational, critical space about the arts and culture. This is our ninth session, a discussion about the New Repertory Theatre’s production of David Mamet’s play “Race”, which revolves around the frenzy and fury generated by three attorneys who are asked to defend a wealthy man accused of raping an African-American woman.
Judicial Review # 8: Making Sense of the “Assassins”
What is a Judicial Review? It is a fresh approach to creating a conversational, critical space about the arts and culture. This is our eighth session, a discussion about the Boston University College of Fine Arts production of the 1990 Stephen Sondheim/John Weidman musical Assassins, which looks at the lives and sensibilities of men and women who attempted (successfully or otherwise) to kill the President of the United States.
Theater Review: Bravo! Hershey Felder in “Maestro: Leonard Bernstein (A Play With Music)”
Directed ably by Joel Zwick, a long-time collaborator of Hershey Felder’s, the excellent Maestro: Leonard Bernstein includes the performer singing, playing the piano, and conducting as well as telling stories.
Judicial Review # 7: Critical Perspectives on “Dialogues of the Carmelites”
What is a Judicial Review? It is a fresh approach to creating a conversational, critical space about the arts and culture. This is our seventh session, this time a discussion about the Boston University School of Fine Arts production of Francis Poulenc’s opera Dialogues of the Carmelites, which raises issues about faith and resistance.
Book Review: An Outstanding “List”
Although he has set himself an ambitious task with all that is happening in “The List,” Martin Fletcher has complete command of this material and has created a complex novel that is also a good thriller.
Visual Arts Review: Flowers as the Work Table for the Imagination
Inescapably erotic, flowers are all about desire. What are they but a glorious exhibition and frame of their own genitals?
Theater Review: Not Enough Political Heat in “The Kitchen”
National Theatre director Bijan Sheibani chose artistry of movement, beautiful as it is, over the battering belittlement of really hard, unappreciated work, the facts of sweat and stupor.
Theater Review: Of Race and Real Estate — Clybourne Park
Given his full-throttle depiction of the myopia of middle class mores, Bruce Norris is more in the flamboyant satiric line of Sinclair Lewis, who also trained his sharp ear and eye on the Midwest, the American heartland, jabbing away at American delusions of community, status, and self-satisfaction.