Review
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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreNow 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.
Read MoreSUBMARINE director Richard Ayoade has good taste. He loves movies so purely and energetically that it’s fun to watch him borrow from his favorites and patch together something new.
Read MoreYour reaction to PigPen Theatre Company’s “The Mountain Song” will depend on how much whimsical Americana you can stomach
Read MoreThis is adversarial criticism, with an eye on the martyred, fueled by grievances political and aesthetic — the return of the repressed as the comeuppance for the comfortable. No wonder Roberto Bolaño’s reviews garnered him fierce detractors as well as admirers.
Read MoreTwo New York stage productions offer sterling examples of going maximalist in an increasingly minimalist age
Read MoreThe Bobby Fischer that the documentary portrays is both a creature of the Cold War era, shouldering that burden, and a peculiarly American hero. It airs this Monday, June 6, on HBO Bobby Fischer Against the World. Directed by Liz Garbus. By Harvey Blume ( Also in The Arts Fuse: Harvey Blume’s thoughts on Fischer’s…
Read MoreThere is so much that could have gone right for The Conspirator that it seems such a waste that it doesn’t amount to more than it does. It’s a complicated and rich story of Civil War vengeance versus justice with very high stakes on the line. The Conspirator. Directed by Robert Redford. The cast includes…
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