On the eve of the 67th annual Tony Awards, recognizing the season’s bests, here are reviews of some of the season’s standout productions: Matilda: If there were an award for best British import with highest level of hype, this engaging, but often unintelligible musical from the Royal Shakespeare Company would win hands down. It did win London’s Olivier Award and looks poised … [Read more...]
‘Shouting’ a poignant look at growing sound of silence
Nearly 50 million Americans suffer from hearing loss, most of it related to aging and exposure to loud noise. For more than two decades Katherine Bouton has lived with hearing loss so severe that it forced her to quit her job as a New York Times editor. Although Shouting Won’t Help is sometimes overly technical and is stuffed with statistics, the book nevertheless provides an … [Read more...]
Exhibit makes persuasive case for video games as art
Something has happened to the Boca Raton Museum of Art. Its latest exhibit is making it look, in one word, cool. Old and new game systems, vivid graphics, game tactics, music scores and creative storylines are all showcased in the dynamic and highly interactive show The Art of Video Games. The Boca Raton museum is the first in the nation to host the exhibit, which will tour … [Read more...]
A first look at Dramaworks’ new home; Maltz seeks student actors
With no summer show this year, Palm Beach Dramaworks has been out of the media eye lately, so it invited the local theater press -- and a few politicos -- for a tour of the renovations of the Cuillo Centre in West Palm Beach, to demonstrate that it was on schedule to open Dramaworks’ new permanent home on Nov. 11 of this year. Yes, 11-11-11, for you numerology fans. According … [Read more...]
Documentary captures an exceptional New York eye
Less than two years after The September Issue probed the life and work of fashion kingmaker Anna Wintour, a new documentary offers a look at another figure residing in the nexus of fashion and print journalism. In Bill Cunningham New York, which opens Friday in South Florida, the subject is New York Times fashion photographer Cunningham, a man just as iconoclastic – and more … [Read more...]
Banville’s latest a wizardly look at gods and man
The modern literary novelist faces two large difficulties. One is how to write something worth reading, a story perhaps, invoking, perhaps, the human condition, without recourse to the worn-out conventions of realistic narrative fiction (a situation brilliantly discussed by James Wood in the March 15 edition of The New Yorker). The second problem is what might be called the … [Read more...]
‘Storytelling’ an incisive look at contemporary youth
Carter W. Lewis’ imaginatively written tale of two smart, smart-mouthed teens, Peck and Dora, might well have been titled This Is Our Youth, if Kenneth Lonergan had not beaten him to it several years earlier. For in this three-character microcosm, we glimpse what is happening inside the heads of today’s students and, perhaps inevitably, how matters lead to violence. But … [Read more...]