By Dale King The “play-within-a-play” device has worked pretty well over the years. Even William Shakespeare used it to his advantage. Playwright James Sherman employs this literary mechanism deftly in his play, The God of Isaac, now at the Broward Stage Door Theater in Coral Springs. The Isaac of this show is not Isaac, son of Abraham and Sarah, and father of Jacob and … [Read more...]
‘Wild’ a gripping story of self-discovery
Cheryl Strayed grabs the reader on the first page of this absorbing book when she describes an unfortunate incident during her 1995 trek along West Coast mountain ranges. Strayed had removed her hiking boots to rest when suddenly one of the boots slipped over the edge of a cliff. Realizing that the other boot was now worthless, she tossed it off the side of the mountain, … [Read more...]
Planck science makes gripping art at Photo Centre
By Tom Tracy Walking into the main gallery of the Palm Beach Photographic Centre this month might best be described as a large-scale Rorschach test designed to reveal something about your own Freudian mindscape. That’s because through the end of the year the Photographic Center on Clemetis Street is hosting Images of Science, an exhibit of 40 photos from scientific research … [Read more...]
Gripping ‘Margin Call’ has feel, relevance of Greek tragedy
Like most criminal activity, everything in Margin Call happens in the dead of night – one specific night, in this case. The movie’s well-dressed investment bankers, important fat cats in their self-contained worlds, are like single-celled mitochondria in the grand scheme of the financial collapse that will follow in their wake, as we watch them trudge, bleary-eyed, toward the … [Read more...]
Mosaic’s ‘Dying City’ a gripping, vital two-hander
Talk about switching gears. After planning to produce the entertaining, but empty British farce Boeing-Boeing, Plantation’s Mosaic Theatre abruptly changed course to present instead Christopher Shinn’s shifting, shifty contemporary drama, Dying City. It was a smart move for artistic director Richard Jay Simon, who traded up to a powerful play by an important emerging writer. … [Read more...]
‘Reclaimed’ story gripping, the art is less so
Dark walls and low lights set up the mood for Reclaimed: Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker, a traveling show now at the Norton Museum of Art through May 9. The pieces shown here have been through a lot. They are part of one of the largest restitutions of Nazi-looted art and were only recovered a few years ago. Most of them look tired, old and would be far … [Read more...]
‘Paris’ a gripping mediation on darkness in City of Light
Reading the cliché-riddled description of Paris on the Website of the Lake Worth Playhouse, where the film opens Friday, you may want to roll your eyes. This “valentine to the city of lights” is a “cinematic love letter to a city that seems to hide a story behind every shop window, small alley, street market or grand apartment building … the film explores the life and love … [Read more...]