Kathy McCafferty and Patricia Kilgarriff in Outside Mullingar. (Photo by Samantha Mighdoll) Palm Beach Dramaworks sets aside the heaviness of Eugene O’Neill, Edward Albee and William Inge for an uncharacteristic comedy, a romantic comedy no less. And while plenty of theater practitioners will tell you that producing comedy is harder than drama, you would never know it from the … [Read more...]
Community theater: ‘Charming ‘Bell, Book and Candle’ at Broward Stage Door
By Dale King Were it not for playwright John Van Druten’s whimsical, witty, witch story, Bell, Book and Candle, our TV screens may never have had shows like Bewitched, Charmed or Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Movie screens may have never seen the likes of Harry Potter’s world of wands and wizardry without a Van Druten connection. In the very capable hands of Broadway-schooled … [Read more...]
Community theater: Charming ‘Sylvia’ closes Delray Playhouse season
By Dale King The literary device known as the “willing suspension of disbelief” is “an essential element when experiencing any drama or work of fiction,” said poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who coined the phrase in 1817. “We may know very well that we are watching an actor or looking at marks on paper, but we wilfully accept them as real in order to fully experience what the … [Read more...]
Charming French whimsy, by way of Finnish auteur
As charming as it is preposterous, a French fable called Le Havre arrives this week by way of Finland, the home of writer-director Aki Kaurismäki, whose idiosyncratic style is evident throughout this tale of that current events topic -- illegal immigration. Le Havre, the industrial port city in Normandy plays a vital role in this story of a likeable freelance shoeshine guy, … [Read more...]
Charming ‘Names’ charts unusual path to lasting love
A “political whore” with a noble cause and a shy Jewish scientist who worries too much about the avian flu meet, and last, in the French comedy The Names of Love (Le Nom des Gens), which is playing through Thursday at the Lake Worth Playhouse, Mos’Art Theatre and other area art houses. The buzz about these two eccentric characters, Baya Benmahmoud and Arthur Martin (played by … [Read more...]