By Dale King It’s no secret that playwright Ken Ludwig has a fancy for farce. It shows up big time in such slapstick comedies as Lend Me a Tenor and Moon over Buffalo. Two years ago, he wrote The Game’s Afoot, a comedy-mystery set in 1936 that mixes elements of Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with the run-and-door-slam humor of the film, Clue. It’s also a … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2013
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 29-Dec. 1
Dance: Cue the Mouse King. It’s time once again for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s indelible ballet, The Nutcracker, which premiered in 1892. Oddly enough, the composer didn’t care for it, thinking he had written himself out. No one would agree with that sentiment today, and his sparkling score has become particularly beloved for young ballet companies with lots of children. Lovers … [Read more...]
Evocative new movements make successful fresh take on Mozart Requiem
It took a serious amount of artistic nerve for Seraphic Fire to commission a new completion for the Mozart Requiem, some 18 minutes of freshly composed music the choir unveiled last week at three different concerts. Instead of going with another academic examination of the music Franz Süssmayr composed, or perhaps drew from some now-missing Mozart sketches, for the Sanctus, … [Read more...]
‘Great Beauty’ looks it, but has little heart
The first 15 minutes or so of Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty is one of year’s most daring expressions of cinema’s intoxicating possibilities. The opening shot starts inside a cannon, with the camera tracking out of it and up and away, like a cannonball, and we get through an entire reel before it settles down. Restless but elegant, it drifts in and around Rome’s ancient … [Read more...]
Four Arts shows us a Deco Japan we never knew
A new art exhibit at The Society of the Four Arts skips the foreplay and leads with the most daring Art Deco while leaving the dirtiest (politics) out. I walked in and there it was: a Japanese nude barely covered in black lace leaning back on a couch, and attended to by a younger female helper. Clearly, I had made a mistake, but some steps later another daring female stood … [Read more...]
Poignant ‘Asher Lev’ pits art versus religion
In the same way that one can think of theater as a substitute temple, Jacob Kahn, the renowned painter and mentor to young Asher Lev, instructs him that art can be a religion. It is an empowering idea for an Hasidic Jew struggling with the conflict between the faith he was brought up in and the artwork which pours out of him and offends his parents and the orthodox community. … [Read more...]
Vänskä, Perianes astonish at New World
By Lawrence Budmen The New World Symphony’s concert on Saturday evening at Frank Gehry’s stunning New World Center looked fairly conventional on paper. The standard repertoire pairing of a Chopin concerto and Sibelius symphony hardly seemed daring or innovative, unlike the Miami Beach-based orchestral academy’s more adventurous programming; yet the combination of the … [Read more...]
Miloš holds inaugural Chamber Society audience spellbound
The Troubadour, with his slung guitar and singsong voice, came to Palm Beach last Thursday to the Crystal Room of Mar-a-Lago. This time it was the handsome 30-year-old guitarist Miloš Karadaglić who gave the inaugural concert of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach’s Great Performers series, a newly formed cultural venture led by Michael Finn, formerly the executive … [Read more...]
Unusual repertoire stands out at chamber fest’s final fall concert
By Donald Waxman Music quiz: You are presented with a single page of an upcoming chamber music concert in South Florida listing the titles, composers and instrumentation of the works to be played, but no mention of the name of the chamber music series or who are the performers. The program consists of Tomaso Albinoni’s Concerto in C for trumpet, oboes and bassoons; André … [Read more...]
Odd-couple quest for lost son becomes radiant human-interest story
Philomena opens with a poop joke, but it’s an erudite poop joke. Steve Coogan is hearing medical results from his doctor, and he’s told his stool sample is “outstanding,” which Coogan’s character takes as a compliment, until the doc clarifies that Coogan hasn’t provided the sample yet. So you see, it’s not scatological humor so much as phonic humor, playing off an amusing … [Read more...]