Playwright A.R. Gurney has made a career chronicling the waning traditions of upper-class WASPS. First there was the formality of the dining room and, in 1989’s Love Letters, he wrote of a lifelong relationship as seen through the dying art of correspondence. He takes us back to a time — not that long ago — before e-mail or text messages, when people sat down, pen in hand, and … [Read more...]
MacGraw, O’Neal reunite for ‘Love Letters’ at Broward Center
If you are on the far side of 55 or have an extensive DVD collection of romantic kitsch, you probably know Oliver Barrett IV and Jenny Cavalleri, a/k/a Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw, of Erich Segal’s runaway bestselling novel Love Story and the 1970 blockbuster movie it spawned. Well, the two film stars – now in their mid-70s – have reunited for a national tour of A.R. Gurney’s … [Read more...]
‘Love & Mercy’ director Pohlad kept the ‘Brians’ independent
Although crippled by mental illness throughout much of his career, Beach Boys’ lead singer/songwriter Brian Wilson was not diagnosed as schizophrenic. Yet in the musical biopic, Love & Mercy, opening locally this weekend, he is portrayed by two very different actors — Paul Dano as the unstable, volatile Wilson in the 1960s and John Cusack as the later, near-catatonic Wilson in … [Read more...]
Jason Alexander finds much to love about directing ‘When You’re Jewish’
It is kind of a cliché: Jason Alexander is a Tony Award-winning and seven-time Emmy-nominated actor, but what he really wants to do is direct. And because of a little sitcom called Seinfeld, he can indulge his affection for directing, because he really doesn’t have to work another day in his life. “No, not financially, but I need to work emotionally. I don’t need to make a … [Read more...]
‘Love Is Strange’: An exquisite, realistic couple story
There are no opening credits in Ira Sachs’ new film, Love Is Strange; we just get to it. An older man who we quickly recognize as John Lithgow wakes up in the morning, crawls out of bed, takes a dutiful, glum shower, and begins what seems like an ordinary day. He can’t find his glasses, which bothers him greatly, and by the reaction of his partner, played by Alfred Molina, … [Read more...]
‘Face of Love’ channels Hitchock, appealingly
Since the 1970s, as American screenplays have striven for an ever more realistic dialogue patter, one thing is often lost among the ums, the likes, the stammers, the deliberately botched words and the half-finished thoughts: elegance. Nobody actually talked like Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, but we still watch His Girl Friday for the exasperating perfection of its … [Read more...]
Artist Cervetti brings color, spirituality to her work
By Tom Tracy If you were to stroll past Talia Cervetti’s studio on Lucerne Avenue in artsy downtown Lake Worth earlier this year, you might have found her seated low to the floor, listening to an old Sade CD while stitching a design into one of her acrylic paintings. Or she might have been drawing one of her abstract figurative series in black-and-white using pencil, graphite … [Read more...]
‘Love, Loss’ minor, but it’s Shakespeare compared to ‘Divorce Party’
Don’t men go to the theater anymore? Scan the current audiences at the Kravis Center’s Rinker Playhouse, or the Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale, and you would swear the answer is a resounding “No.” Not only are there almost no men in attendance, but the shows on view -- Divorce Party The Musical and Love, Loss and What I Wore -- are so female-centric, so calculated for … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 10-12
Music: The Palm Beach Opera opens its 49th season tonight with Nabucco, the opera that made Giuseppe Verdi’s career back in 1842. It’s the first mounting of this opera by the company in 25 years, and they’ve secured a host of singers with experience at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Mark Rucker and Sebastian Catana trade places as Nabucco himself, and Paoletta Marrocu and … [Read more...]