Film: It doesn’t happen often, but a movie like Looper demonstrates that a science fiction/action picture can also be smart. Set in 2044, with a believable visual concept of the near future just before time travel is invented. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises) plays a looper, a paid assassin who knocks off convicts and other bad guys sent back from 30 … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Opera’s Aprea leaves company; Fleisher gives Lynn master class
WEST PALM BEACH – The artistic director of the Palm Beach Opera has left the company, officials said Tuesday. Bruno Aprea, who has led musical aspects of the company’s productions and orchestral concerts since 2005, rejected the contract he was offered for the new season, said the company’s general director, Daniel Biaggi. The company has been restructuring to a more … [Read more...]
A disquieting story of a man, and a time, of excess
Taken most literally, Cosmopolis is about a rich guy going to get a haircut. That’s the story. But you can’t take this anti-capitalist, Kafkaesque satire literally … can you? The narrative consists of an asset manager, Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson), driving around Manhattan in a stretch limousine shielded from the sounds of the unwashed masses rioting outside. He sees his … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Rigby sparkles as ‘Peter’; Mad Cat’s take on ‘Hamlet’ engrossing
Reviewers are by nature a skeptical bunch, so when former Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby announced ― some 22 years ago ― that she was reinventing herself as a musical theater performer and taking to the skies as Peter Pan, it seemed gimmick casting at best. Undaunted by critical doubters, she took her craft seriously, training to be an actress as diligently as she did as an … [Read more...]
Chamber concert offers fine 20th-century discoveries
Over the years, some of the better Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival concerts have presented a good blend of discovery and tradition. And so it was with the second concert in the festival’s 21st season this past weekend. The festival musicians sounded well-rehearsed and crisply confident at the Crest Theatre on Sunday, and delivered a fine afternoon of masterworks and obscure … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 7-12
Theater: In its 22 years of existence, Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival has already performed the Bard’s Twelfth Night twice, but it is going back to that well again, now that plans to tackle Christopher Fry’s The Lady’s Not For Burning have fallen through. Guest artist director Kevin Crawford was in the previous two production of the comedy about twins separated by a shipwreck, … [Read more...]
‘Standing on Ceremony’: The playwrights explain
The assignment was to write a 10-minute play about marriage equality, and nine nationally known playwrights ― from Moises Kaufman to Wendy MacLeod to Jose Rivera ― answered the call, turning out what collectively has become known as Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays. After benefit performances around the country and a successful commercial run off-Broadway, the … [Read more...]
It’s hippie, dippy and substantial as pot smoke
Bruce Beresford, the Aussie director behind such gems as Breaker Morant and Tender Mercies, has become only the latest director of commercial cinema who has been relegated to indiedom – in turn suffering the limited distribution and paucity of TV ads that accompany the transition. But unlike a Jonathan Demme or William Friedkin, whose art has become too renegade for the … [Read more...]
Handsome, beautifully staged ‘Romeo’ ends FGO season in style
The ultimate success of an opera or of a production finally comes down to the music – whether it’s good enough, in the first place, and in the second, whether it’s been sung well. But something needs to be said now and again about a good staging. Although Florida Grand Opera has had many fine directorial hands at work over the years, its current production of Charles Gounod’s … [Read more...]
School of Rock brings band, dreams to Philly, Cleveland
For every kid who learns to play an instrument or sing (or both) in hopes of joining a rock band, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is the pinnacle. Just ask the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who formed in Hollywood, Calif., in 1983 -- the same year the hall was established in Cleveland -- and got enshrined during its 27th annual induction ceremony last month. But even for the members … [Read more...]