Ed Asner as the 32nd president of the United States.Theater: Ed Asner as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It is one liberal icon playing another liberal icon in the one-man show FDR, opening a brief five-day run at the Caldwell Theatre in Boca Raton beginning Wednesday evening. The play, written by Roosevelt scholar Dore Schary (Sunrise at Campobello), looks at the … [Read more...]
The View From Home 26: New releases and notable screenings, May 24 -June 10
Donatas Banionis and Natalya Bondarchuk in Solaris (1972).By John ThomasonAndrei Tarkovsky, the Russian New Wave’s most glorified director of rarefied museum pieces, represents, more than any director of his generation, the division between true cinephiles and casual “movie buffs.”The latter enjoys Fellini, some Godard and even an Antonioni picture or two, … [Read more...]
Theater review: Young thespian’s strong debut makes ‘Secret Garden’ worth cultivating
By Hap ErsteinMore interested in spiritual rebirth than the usual romance that fuels musicals, with a score more attuned to British folk melodies than Tin Pan Alley hits, you can understand why 1991’s underrated The Secret Garden is rarely revived these days.And then there is the casting challenge of its main character, 12-year-old Mary Lennox, the suddenly … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 20-22
Reece Thompson and Hilary Duff in Bloodworth.Film: If you crave a good, character-driven Southern coming-of-age, family reunion, eccentricity excess yarn, check out this weekend’s indie release, Bloodworth, fresh from the festival circuit and into a local Palm Beach Gardens theater on a market test basis. Having survived a medical scare, patriarch E.F. … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: From Afghanistan war to Victorian sex
Eric Mendenhall and Elizabeth Birkenmeier inThe Cha-Cha of a Camel Spider.By Hap ErsteinWhether or not the pen is truly mightier than the sword, playwright Carter W. Lewis is out to prove in his enigmatically titled The Cha-Cha of a Camel Spider that slam poetry can trump a mercenary private army.If that sounds like an unlikely match-up, then you are grasping the … [Read more...]
Opera review: Busy, smart ‘Giovanni’ ends FGO season in entertaining style
David Pittsinger and Georgia Jarman in Don Giovanni.(Photo by Gaston de Cardenas)By Greg StepanichFORT LAUDERDALE – More so than most operas, Don Giovanni presents its audience with a puzzle: Is it a tragedy or a comedy?The Romantics of the 19th century saw it as an exercise in decadence and darkness, and until recently it was common to leave out the final scene, … [Read more...]
Busy, smart ‘Giovanni’ ends FGO season in entertaining style
FORT LAUDERDALE – More so than most operas, Don Giovanni presents its audience with a puzzle: Is it a tragedy or a comedy? The Romantics of the 19th century saw it as an exercise in decadence and darkness, and until recently it was common to leave out the final scene, and end the opera with the licentious Don dragged screaming into Hell. But surely seeing it as a comedy, if … [Read more...]
Theater feature: ‘Color Purple’ director always believed in story’s power
A scene from the original production of The Color Purple. (Photo by Paul Kolnik)By Hap ErsteinEight-time Jefferson Award-winning director Gary Griffin made his Broadway debut six years ago with the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s beloved epistolary novel, The Color Purple, a runaway hit now on its second national tour, completing a week’s run at the Kravis Center on … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 13-15
Richard Fleischman.Music: The instruments most musicians work with today are survivors or variations of the sonic armaments they had in other eras. Gone, for the most part, are the ophicleide, the serpent, the sarrusophone. Most of the viol family, with the exception of the double bass (and its modern derivative the bass guitar), also is gone, heard … [Read more...]
The View From Home 25: New releases on DVD
Araya (Milestone)Release date: May 10Standard list price: $29.95Milestone Films releases many different kinds of movies, but if the distributor has a signature style, it’s the merger of documentary and fiction – depictions of real life colored, in one way or another, with the aesthetic control of fiction.I am Cuba, The Exiles, On the Bowery and In This … [Read more...]