On bad days, I tell people that as far as I’m concerned, New York museums can all go to hell until one of them gives more substantial attention to Fairfield Porter as well as to give a solo show to Jane Freilicher.
Review
Theatre Review: 1001 — Fun Until the Scimitar Falls
Dramatist Jason Grote spins a postmodern, political variation on Scheherazade in his play 1001, and while it skimps on the imaginative playfulness of other versions, its time-tripping allusiveness has a scruffy intellectual charm.
Movie Review: The World Goes “Tabloid”
The documentary TABLOID comes at an opportune time: an enigmatic look at one of the greatest tabloid stories of all time (the film will convince you of that) as Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid news empire melts down amid allegations of phone hacking.
Theater Review: Matt & Ben — Nobody’s Home
In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman argues that American culture is becoming dumber and dumber—plays like Matt & Ben suggest that we have entered the afterlife. Matt & Ben by Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers. Directed by M. Bevin O’Gara. At the Central Square Theater, 450 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA, through August […]
Theater Review: Jane Austen Tweets In Chester, MA
The Chester Theatre Company’s production, directed by Ron Bashford, runs over two hours with nary a dull moment and the actors seem to be having as wonderful a time as the audience.
Movie Review: End “Times”?
“Page One” is quite interesting but also quite scattered. You’ll exit the theater knowing a couple things about the New York Times, and maybe feeling like you got an idea about the characters of some of the talented, humorous, and interesting personalities that put it together.
Theater Review: All’s Well, I Guess — Girl Gets Boy, Boy Ditches Girl, Girl Gets Boy Back
The likable Commonwealth Shakespeare Company staging leans very heavily on the comedy in ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, minimizing the Bard’s melancholic undertow.
Book Review: Playing in the Shadows of the Modernist Giants
The wily Enrique Vila-Matas remains wary but respectful of Ernest Hemingway and asserts his independence by going on his own self-consciously vaudevillian way—Juan Gabriel Vásquez is too subservient to elude the shadow of Joseph Conrad.
Short Fuse Book Review: A Doctorate in Chess Memoir Drag
The theme of fading passion would have been enough. It is the theme of many a love story. It would have been enough for this chess story. But author Robert R. Desjarlais won’t let it be enough.
Theater Review: Gloucester Stage Company Tries The Impossible
Now why, you might ask. Why is there no reaction? Why does everyone involved, chose to ignore the scandal? Because, playwright Alan Ayckbourn would say, that is how most of us are. To paraphrase “Hamlet”: We rather bear the troubles we know, than — by opposing them — create even bigger ones.