Noel Coward would become one of Great Britain’s wittiest, most successful high-style playwrights, known for such enduring comedies of manners as Private Lives, Present Laughter and Design for Living. In 1925, though, at the age of 25, he wrote the less well-known, lesser Easy Virtue, a dark-toned tale of an American divorcee who marries into a well-heeled British family, most … [Read more...]
Archives for June 2018
Weekend arts picks: June 9-10
Film: I have rarely recommended a horror film, but Ari Aster’s directing debut, Hereditary, is so creepy good, with a stunning central performance by Toni Collette, that it exceeds the genre. She plays a woman disturbed by the recent death of her mother, whose genes have apparently infected the family and set in motion a series of tragedies. When her stoner son reluctantly … [Read more...]
Joy and color abound at Bass’s Karen Rifas show
By Sandra Schulman Long time Miami-based artist and teacher Karen Rifas was given a great luxury in her new show Deceptive Constructions at The Bass in Miami Beach. She had the large high-ceilinged exhibition space room available to her in advance, so she could literally plan the show within and around (and up and down) it. The result is a joyous contained geometric … [Read more...]
At Max Planck, investigating the mystery of memory
By Myles Ludwig As a writer, I depend upon my memory a great deal, not so much for facts and figures so easily abundant by click, but certainly for flavor. For making something out of nothing, so to speak, which may be how the expression, “spinning a good yarn” came about. I also coach embryonic memoirists at The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach and the Mid-County … [Read more...]
Faith of the father, test of our time: Schrader’s powerful ‘First Reformed’
The setting for much of Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is a white Dutch Colonial church, simple and sturdy and indistinguishable from the thousands of similar structures that punctuate America’s hills and hollers, its exurbs and suburbs. The chapel, First Reformed in upstate New York, is situated near Abundant Life, a pyrotechnic megachurch with live-streamed sermons and … [Read more...]
Tony predictions: ‘Harry Potter,’ ‘Band’s Visit’ to take top honors
Your fearless prognosticator goes out on a limb once again, predicting this season’s Tony Award winners for Broadway excellence. The winners will be announced this Sunday at Radio City Music Hall (broadcast on CBS-TV, beginning at 8 p.m.) A lot of the imminent recipients are obvious, thanks to a fairly anemic season with a lot of categories filled with blatant … [Read more...]