By Robert Croan The grand-scaled Divertimento in E-flat Major (K. 563) is Mozart’s only composition for string trio, one of the first ever composed for that combination, and to this day considered the greatest work in that form. A probing, technically accomplished performance of this 45-minute opus, a very serious work despite its seemingly lighthearted title, took up … [Read more...]
Archives for December 2016
Sophomoric, witless ‘Office Christmas Party’ is a waste of fine comics
Seth Rogen makes funny look easy. This time a year ago, the comic actor-producer’s gloriously bawdy The Night Before was jingling its balls on thousands of screens. At the time, I wrote in this publication that “few comedies in recent memory measure up to middle hour of ‘The Night Before’ in its hedonistic inspiration, its rat-a-tat barrage of brilliant material, one joke … [Read more...]
Loehr astonishes in Maltz’s ‘Me and My Girl’
Regular Maltz Jupiter theatergoers will probably not be surprised to hear that Matt Loehr again gives an astonishing star turn in the Jupiter company’s production of 1937’s Me and My Girl. After all, by now they should be used to his stage antics, both comic and romantic. Whether the material is sturdy (Crazy for You, The Music Man) or weak (The Will Rogers Follies), the … [Read more...]
At Dramaworks, Donohoe finds depth in Capote’s cattiness
As one-man shows — that most artificial of theater genres — go, Jay Presson Allen’s Tru, a biographical slice of Truman Capote’s life, is better than most. It takes place on Christmas Eve, 1975, soon after the great Southern writer and social butterfly has published a sizeable excerpt of his scandalous roman à clef, Answered Prayers. Shunned by his former friends from high … [Read more...]
Art notes: The Festival of Trees, and a remarkable painter
By Myles Ludwig Strolling through the serenity of the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, peopled with the artist’s monumental, anthropomorphic brick figures nestled between Barcelona Street and South Flagler Drive, I came upon the gardens’ annual Christmas gift, The Festival of Trees. It’s a series of thematically enhanced Christmas trees and while I was there, a jaunty group … [Read more...]
Quirky, brilliant ‘Random World’ engages at FAU Theatre Lab
“Connect, Georges,” says Dot to a brilliant, but obtuse pointillist painter in the musical Sunday in the Park with George. And in a similar way, theatergoers at Steven Dietz’s wise and witty comedy of missed connections, This Random World, will want to shout to the characters to open their eyes and understand what links them. Dietz’s intricately structured script, now … [Read more...]
‘American in Paris’: Iconic score, film reimagined for Broadway
Twenty-three years after George Gershwin composed an orchestral piece called An American in Paris — and 14 years since his death — the work became the climax of an Oscar-winning movie of the same name. Continuing his posthumous productivity, that film was transformed into a Broadway musical last year to major acclaim, spawning a national tour which arrives at the Kravis Center … [Read more...]
Violinist Mracek shows star potential at Boca Symphonia
One of the joys of being a music critic is getting a chance to have an early encounter with a major talent you’ve never heard before. You don’t know when that’s going to happen, but it comes as a sure thing when it does. And Sunday afternoon at the Roberts Theater, it happened: An audience got to hear a young standout, new to American audiences, who it seems to me stands a … [Read more...]
At FGO, Mack has makings of first-rate Carmen
By Robert Croan Miami-based Florida Grand Opera presents four operas each season, with five performances of each work in that city’s Arsht Center, alternating two casts in the leading roles. The company repeats some of its productions – this season, three of the four – in Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center with casts chosen from the Miami performances. In the case of … [Read more...]
My Cuba: A photo essay and that big D word
As of late, I have a hard time understanding Americans. They love their country and defend it with blind vigor because they believe it to be the best in the world and yet, they reject its main attribute: Democracy. I get that they are upset and feel sick to their stomachs with the latest gift democracy dropped. At least one half of the country got what it wanted. That’s … [Read more...]