Review
Willy Russell’s play is a keeper. It’s tightly-crafted, emotionally generous, and—most of all—FUN! It provides one hell of a dramatic vehicle for a director attuned to the comedy of “higher” education. Educating Rita by Willy Russell. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Boston University Theater, Boston, MA, through April 10. By Helen Epstein…
Read MoreIn her second novel, Aminatta Forna gives us a moving story of the toll that the terrible civil war in Sierra Leone has taken and is still taking, years after it supposedly ended.
Read MoreBare chested and sweating up a storm, singer Gavin Creel as Prometheus makes for a rock rebel with lots of snarly attitude, defying Zeus’s tyranny by flexing his abs.
Dramatist Theresa Rebeck’s updated version of Ibsen’s play strengthens one key aspect of A Doll’s House—its picture of savage incomprehension between man and woman, which drives Ibsen’s call for independence and self-respect in a society that rewards complacency, greed, and childish role-playing. DollHouse by Theresa Rebeck. Based on A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen. Directed…
Read MoreSuccess assured? Critics and others discuss whether the MFA’s new wing, The Art of the Americas, lives up to the hype generated by the opening in the latest Judicial Review.
Read MoreThe Adjustment Bureau is a surprisingly good, romantic movie considering that angels are determining the fate of star-crossed lovers and the plot is driven by such lines as “if you stay together, you will not only ruin your dreams, you will also ruin hers.” The Adjustment Bureau. Directed by George Nolfi. The cast includes Matt…
Read MoreNo new edition of Bishop’s poetry, which she created with such loving-care and sent to publishers with such restraint, not to say stinginess, could advance her current reputation. She is America’s flagship, 20th-century poet, leaving the straight men (Eliot, Frost, Stevens, and Lowell) in her wake. (Expect a Bishop backlash by 2020.) Yet many poetry…
Read MoreTwo recent productions of Shakespeare, one a heralded London staging at the Donmar Warehous heading to New York in April, the other an Actors’ Shakespeare Project presentation in Davis Square, provide examples of the strengths and weaknesses of tackling the Bard without frills.
Read MoreThese novels by the young, Indian writers Natacha Appanah, who identifies herself as French-Mauritian, and Rana Dasgupta take the form of memoirs of old men who look back on their lives, searching for the truth and the peace that comes with an understanding of the past. The Last Brother by Natacha Appanah. Translated from the…
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Music Review: The Beatles are Still Here, There, and Everywhere