There is a lot more carnage then there are signs of God in Yasmina Reza’s 2009 Tony Award-winning best play, God of Carnage, which opens this evening at the Caldwell Theatre Company in Boca Raton. As she did with her earlier acclaimed comedy Art, Reza enjoys conjuring up adults moved by circumstances to act childishly. In that earlier play, it was three men, long-time friends … [Read more...]
‘Monger’ danced amazingly, but needs more theatrical weight
What resonates in your mind’s eye after watching Monger, the evening-length work by choreographer Barak Marshall, is the astonishingly original movement. With the fusion of highly arresting visual images, an extremely diverse music score and such powerfully athletic and gestural movement, Marshall has created an absolutely original portrayal of oppression. Monger reveals … [Read more...]
Film festivals cover varied ground, from indie to Andy
Palm Beach County used to be film-festival challenged, but now we have a glut of options for moviegoers who want to get away from a steady diet of studio fare and perhaps rub shoulders with some of the filmmakers. It is, after all, not a hard sell to get directors and actors to come to Palm Beach in the final, frozen days of winter. Tonight kicks off the 16th annual Palm … [Read more...]
‘Extraordinary’ apt description for Flagler’s Urban retrospective
Certain media, subjects and sizes benefit an artist more than others. And something in the creation process usually gets lost, while going from one to another. Some highlight skill while others harm it. Some encourage innovation while others enforce limits. It is hard to be consistently extraordinary. But the Flagler Museum’s current show focuses on a man who was. Named … [Read more...]
‘Sanctum’ tech dazzles, but story is all wet
Like every good idea capitalism has leeched onto and subsequently tarnished, 3D technology has already jumped the shark in its light-speed ascent from cult novelty to the establishment standard of big-budget moviemaking. Dimensions have thus far been added to movies so atrocious I wouldn’t see them if they leaped off the screen, ran to my house and did my laundry for me. I … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: A quality ‘Spider Woman’; ‘Frankenstein’ well-cast but weak
West Boca’s Slow Burn Theatre Co. has carved out a niche for itself that no other area stage troupe seems interested in filling. Its stated mission is to tackle “daring, contemporary and intelligent” musicals, which certainly describes its current production of Kiss of the Spider Woman. This odd-couple tale of Molina, a gay window dresser, and Valentin, a macho freedom … [Read more...]
Pianist Graffman offers left-hand music at Lynn
Sitting down at the Steinway on the stage of the Wold Center, Gary Graffman demonstrates how he tests pianos for the Curtis Institute, which has asked its former director to help choose a new batch of 20 for the Philadelphia arts school. Graffman’s test piece is a slow solo passage from the middle of second movement of the Brahms Second Concerto. And he is playing it with two … [Read more...]
‘Due Date’ crude, but oddball bromance really works
In Due Date, Robert Downey Jr. adds a heretofore-absent patina of acting credibility to the sophomoric cinema of Todd Phillips. He stars as Peter, a harried architect with anger management issues who, thanks to highly improbable conceit aboard an airplane, winds up on a no-fly list, sans wallet, ID and luggage, and is forced to trek cross-country with stranger Ethan (Zach … [Read more...]
Winwood underwhelms, but Santana cooks at Cruzan
Both were boy wonders. Both were performing in public before they reached puberty. Both have kept the fires burning, enthralling, inspiring and enlightening audiences for more than five decades. But perhaps Sunday’s show at Cruzan Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach explains why the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has inducted Carlos Santana as an individual artist, but Steve Winwood … [Read more...]
Theater briefs: ‘The Quarrel’ and ‘Raised in Captivity’
Some theater reaches for spectacle, but what the theater does best is traffic in dialogue and ideas. Words and the emotions behind them are in the spotlight in a brief, intermissionless play at GableStage, The Quarrel, by David Brandes and Joseph Telushkin, which chronicles a chance reunion of two men who were childhood friends. In 1948, in Montreal’s Mount Royal Park, … [Read more...]