Theater
In Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer prize-winning play “Clybourne Park,” resentment and racism chafe at the thin veneer of polite pleasantries.
By planning ahead, and purchasing one flexpass, I was able to see a trio of plays in New York during a single weekend for well under $200 — a bargain price for world-class theater productions.
Presence is the sense that the actors live in the here and now, every minute, every second they are on stage. And Liz Hayes and Nael Nacer do that in the New Rep production of Lungs.
The luminous physical beauty of the production staged by the American Repertory Theater, coupled with carefully crafted performances by its performers, makes this a Glass Menagerie to be cherished.
“As a white atheist male I am told it is none of my business to deal with what‘s going on in the so-called de-colonized societies enforcing their religious laws on their citizens.” — Joshua Sobol
Leaving aside the doctrinal issue of how much of a commedia dell’arte evening should be improvised and how much should be scripted, the Yale Repertory Theatre production, in terms of performance and design, sets a high standard.
After seeing many flat and boring adaptations of books over the past year, I recommend director Piotr Fomenko’s playful adaptation of Tolstoy’s Family Happiness to writers and directors wanting to turn literature into drama.
Life can be found under any stone, in any crack in the sidewalk. But I admit I yearn for being taken on a grander voyage, higher, deeper than any sitcom can take me.
For all of its earnest interest in healing some of the great divides in American life, Other Desert Cities ends up slighting the desert spaces that lie between us.
The Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll at Mid-Year: Warming Up a Riff — How It Happened, and Why It Matters