Long championed as his generation’s Yasujiro Ozu, Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda (Still Walking, Like Father Like Son) makes grown-up films about flawed families, often centering on how we deal with death and other life changes. He’s not an Ozu mimic — he doesn’t share the late master’s formal rigor — but both directors were/are wise beyond their years. They’re both particularly … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2017
Pianist Biegel clowns, shines in P.D.Q. Bach at SoFla Symphony
The American composer Peter Schickele has had a remarkable career in which he has managed to have his own compositional triumphs and an entirely separate career in musical parody, in which his compositional triumphs have been much more dubious. But that’s the sort of thing you’d expect me to say when we’re talking about Schickele’s creation, P.D.Q. Bach, whose scattered … [Read more...]
Cellist Shaw offers fresh programming to close Classical Café
By Dennis D. Rooney Cellist Jacob Shaw and pianist David Lau Magnussen brought to a close this season’s Classical Café concerts at the Duncan Theatre’s Stage West on March 29. The room was designed for easily understood speech. Its dry acoustics reinforce that quality. Music fares less well there. Although these players did not especially seek tonal elegance, their … [Read more...]
Svenja Deininger’s elusive art, at the Norton
By Myles Ludwig The young Austrian artist Svenja Deininger paints shadows and phantoms in textured layers of subdued tones and vibrant colors that sometimes hide and sometimes reveal themselves. Her exhibition of 20 paintings spanning some 11 years is currently marching in carefully ordered formation along the walls at the Norton Museum of Art. Deininger was selected … [Read more...]
Zoetic Stage is big winner at 41st Carbonells
It was a spread-the-wealth evening Monday, as nine South Florida theater companies took home Carbonell Awards at the 41st annual event at the Broward Center. Still, Miami’s Zoetic Stage was the big winner with six awards – three each for the Stephen Sondheim musical Passion and for Michael McKeever’s new play, After. Then again, judging by who walked off with the top awards, … [Read more...]
At the Cornell, ‘Fabricated’ gives us more fiber for our art diet
By Christina Wood You could say that the exhibition currently on display at the Cornell Museum of Art at Old School Square in Delray Beach is held together by a thread. Fabricated, which has been extended through May 7, is a delightful showcase for contemporary artists who wield needles and scissors rather than paint and canvas to create highly collectable fiber art. The … [Read more...]
Letter from Edinburgh: No love lost in Scotland for Trump
By Chloe Elder As an expat living in Scotland, I often find myself in conversations disparaging the state of my homeland. My American accent simply seems to invite a political discussion. Even a trip to the local fish and chip shop welcomes remarks like, “Oh, you’re American? That’s too bad.” The sentiment, however, is one of commiseration rather than accusation. The … [Read more...]
Author tells compelling story of struggle with depression
Daphne Merkin begins this compelling new book with these words, “Lately I’ve been thinking about the allure of suicide again.” Merkin has battled depression since she was a child. She has moved in and out of psychiatric hospitals and therapists’ offices, while gulping down countless bottles of anti-psychotic drugs “just to get through the day.” A voracious … [Read more...]
PB Opera wraps season with Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Pirates of Penzance’
Time was when the English comic operettas of William Schwenk Gilbert (words) and Arthur Sullivan (music) were a regular feature of amateur theatrical activity around this country. It had been that way since the late 1870s, when a national craze in the U.S. for one of their shows, H.M.S. Pinafore, monopolized the popular culture, with theater troupes presenting pirated … [Read more...]
Group offers bluegrass version of Who’s ‘Tommy’ at the Duncan
By Dale King The rock opera Tommy, guitarist Pete Townshend’s high-powered musical about a “deaf, dumb and blind kid” who becomes a “pinball wizard” despite his sensory and other personal obstacles, stops by the Duncan Theatre on the Lake Worth campus of Palm Beach State College at 8 p.m. Wednesday. The show will be performed in its 75-minute entirety, but in a completely … [Read more...]