Review

Theater Reviews: “Operation Mincemeat” and “Buena Vista Social Club” Reflect a Banner Year for Broadway Musicals

April 3, 2025
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A clever British import and a soulful Cuban music-fest reflect a season that delivers the full range of musical storytelling Broadway’s been missing

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Book Review: “Doc Watson: A Life in Music” — An Inspiring Story

April 3, 2025
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Check out the book to absorb the trajectory of Doc Watson’s career from impoverished guitar player to becoming an icon of Americana, and a repeat winner of  Grammy Awards. 

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Film Review: “The Ballad of Wallis Island” — Wandering Off-Key

April 2, 2025
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Heartwarming themes of love lost and the emotional power of music are undercut by a script constructed for the sake of dramatizing ideas rather than characters.

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Classical Concert Review: Sphinx Virtuosi play Joplin, Coleridge-Taylor, Skye, Stewart, Becenti, Carreño, and Taylor

April 2, 2025
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The Sphinx Virtuosi is terrific: the group’s unified tone and articulations, impeccable responsiveness and technique, and command of stylistic nuance are all of the first rank.

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Book Review: Clea Simon’s “The Butterfly Trap” — Double Trouble

April 2, 2025
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The all-too-human propensity for not only telling yourself what you want to hear but taking what you see at face value is what drives the action.

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Book Review: “A Carnival of Atrocities” — Poetic Journey into a Bedeviled Night

April 2, 2025
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For those with an appetite for lyrical absurdity, this dark and demanding journey into a bedeviled night will repay the effort.

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Theater Review: “Night Side Songs” — A Powerful Musical About the Kingdom of the Sick

April 1, 2025
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Ace performances help make Night Side Songs a rich and moving experience, compounded by the fact that it is valuable to be in a room full of empathy and love in these trying times.

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Concert Review: Boston Symphony Orchestra’s “Coltrane: Legacy for Orchestra” — An Evening of Worthwhile Rethinkings

April 1, 2025
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With so many cooks, flaws were inevitable. But the effort was noble, and hearing Terence Blanchard’s beautiful trumpet sound in Symphony Hall was a transcendent experience.

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Book Review: “Fear No Pharaoh” — How American Jews Accommodated Slavery

April 1, 2025
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Richard Kreitner’s narrative shows that, in general, Jews were apparently no more intolerant of slavery than any other Americans – notwithstanding their spiritual and national history of liberation from bondage.

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Theater Review: “The Triumph of Love” — A Gender Bender of a French Farce

March 31, 2025
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“The Triumph of Love” lacks the physical comedy and swift action that usually characterize a farce. Here the dialogue is the action. 

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