Review

Judicial Review # 9: Pushing Hot Buttons — David Mamet’s “Race” @ New Rep

October 19, 2012
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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”

May 8, 2012
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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)”

May 1, 2012
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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.

Book Review: An Outstanding “List”

November 30, 2011
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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

November 5, 2011
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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”

October 26, 2011
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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

October 25, 2011
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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.

Theater Review: The Portrait of a 17th Century Artist as a Young Woman

October 19, 2011
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Liz Duffy Adams’ affectionate look at Aphra Behn’s rise to public prominence, despite prejudice against her gender, comes off as a sort of farcical love letter to an ink-stained ancestor that at times suggests a Shavian talk fest in a minor key.

Book Review: Denis Johnson’s Beautiful, Haunting “Train Dreams”

October 15, 2011
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In “Train Dreams” the world of beauty and terror is balanced as only our best writers have been able to balance those things.

Classical Concert Review: Sean Newhouse Conducts the BSO

October 9, 2011
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Despite some interpretive shortcomings, Sean Newhouse, the orchestra’s 30-year-old assistant conductor has solid technique, and a major orchestra whose players, management, and audience believe in him.

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