Boston
Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage. Written and performed by Banana Bag & Bodice. At Oberon, Cambridge, MA, tonight (September 6). Reviewed by Chantal Mendes AF interview with Big Banana & Bodice Oberon is not the kind of place where you think you are going to learn something about what it means to be human.…
By Chantal Mendes This Sunday the enterprising theater troupe Banana Bag & Bodice brings its distinctively modern adaptation of an ancient classic, Beowulf – A Thousand Years of Baggage, to Oberon in Cambridge, MA. For those of us who missed the recent movie version, Beowulf conjures up sleepy times in early English Literature class. Given…
By Caldwell Titcomb September 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29: Free Wednesday afternoon concerts continue throughout the month. September 1: Pianist Benjamin Warsaw plays works by Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Liszt, and Warsaw himself. September 8: A further celebration of Schumann’s bicentenary brings a program of songs, with soprano Lisa Lynch, mezzo Carola Emrich-Fisher, tenor Jason…
A whole lot of deconstruction of the classics going on this month, along with productions of scripts by familiar homegrown names, from William Inge and David Mamet to Sarah Ruhl. A visit from a master puppeteer and a show about race that’s “recommended for mature audiences” look intriguing. By Bill Marx The Real Inspector Hound…
This MFA exhibition displays some of the most intricate manifestations of tattoos in woodblock prints, leaving the viewer curious about its footprints in contemporary art and popular culture. By Yumi Araki Under the Skin: Tattoos in Japanese Prints is showing at the Museum of Fine Arts through January 2, 2011. As a cultural prelude to…
Shakespeare’s tragic characters, on the other hand, suffer from the Christian sin of pride: knowing you aren’t God, but trying to become Him—a sin of which any of us is capable. — W. H. Auden on Othello in Lectures on Shakespeare Othello by William Shakespeare. Directed by Steven Maler. Staged by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company…
If you want to know what’s for dinner in the Middle East or Africa, look no further than this marvelous book. Here a Persian dish of eggplant with saffron and yogurt, there a Ghanaian soup of chicken and ground nuts scooped up with a dumpling called fufu, there a Lebanese stuffed grape leaf from Arnold…
Reviewed By Caldwell Titcomb A large audience braved a rainy evening to attend the July 23 concert in Jordan Hall presented by the New England Conservatory Festival Youth Orchestra. (NECYFO’s YouTube Channel) The project was founded in 2000 by New England Conservatory (NEC) faculty member Aaron Kula, who remains its conductor in addition to holding…
By Bill Marx Summer has never been a time for theaters taking chances and the sluggish economy only encourages the hot weather drift to safety. But there’s some funky activity around the margins as well as encouraging news about Shakespeare & Company’s finances. Also, the Gloucester Stage Company has forsaken last year’s geriatric lineup and…
The Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll at Mid-Year: Warming Up a Riff — How It Happened, and Why It Matters