Month: May 2012

Dance/Movie Review: The Passing Parade — A Film about the Joffrey Ballet

May 10, 2012
Posted in , ,

The new documentary, derails, partly because its hagiographic tone encourages elisions that beg important questions.

Read More

Classical CD Review: Jeremy Denk’s Ligeti/Beethoven (Nonesuch)

May 10, 2012
Posted in , ,

If you find classical music to be a vibrant, living thing in which inventive pairings and convincing realizations of music of the distant and recent past can speak in fresh and vital ways to the present, Jeremy Denk is your man and this is your CD.

Read More

Theater Review: Boxed In — “Yesterday Happened: Remembering H. M.”

May 9, 2012
Posted in , ,

Dramatist and director Wesley Savick faces a number of fascinating but formidable theatrical challenges, and the generally compelling Yesterday Happened (how could it not be, given its story?) takes an honorable, visually striking swipe at the problems.

Read More

Judicial Review # 8: Making Sense of the “Assassins”

May 8, 2012
Posted in , ,

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.

Read More

Concert Review: Boston Symphony Orchestra/Bernard Haitink at Symphony Hall

May 7, 2012
Posted in , ,

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is a piece the BSO trots out with greater regularity of late than most orchestras (as Tanglewood aficionados are aware, it’s been the traditional summer closer each August for about a decade now) and, while such familiarity may not exactly breed complacency, it certainly runs the risk of so doing.

Read More

Film Review: The Independent Film Festival of Boston — Ten Movies To Look For

May 5, 2012
Posted in ,

The Independent Film Festival of Boston has achieved a reputation as one of the hippest in the country because of the dedication of its small and dedicated staff, an army of well-trained volunteers, and audiences full college students, artists, art lovers, and cinephiles.

Read More

Fuse Theater Review: An Earnest “Troilus and Cressida”

May 4, 2012
Posted in ,

We are a long way from the love-destroyed-by-hostility pieties of Romeo and Juliet, but Actors’ Shakespeare Project director Tina Packer wants to make Troilus and Cressida fit into that reassuring and earnest mold.

Read More

Theater Review: Carlo Goldoni’s Classic Comedy Goes Mod

May 4, 2012
Posted in , ,

The Broadway run of The National Theatre’s production of One Man, Two Guvnors, based on The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni, has been nominated for 7 Tony Awards. Here is Fuse Critic Ian Thal’s review of the National Theatre Live broadcast of the British production, first posted in September, 2011.

Read More

Book Review: Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence Opens

May 3, 2012
Posted in , ,

Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk’s new museum, named for and based on his 2008 novel, The Museum of Innocence, has opened in Istanbul.

Read More

Arts Fuse Editor Bill Marx Talks @ Boston University about Arts Coverage, Teaching, and Books in Translation

May 3, 2012
Posted in ,

One of my students at Boston University, Kyle Clauss, has a program on the school’s station WTBU. He had me on to talk about The Arts Fuse, teaching, and translation, among other issues. Here is the conversation, for those who are interested ….

Read More

Recent Posts