Alex Wipf and Nick Hetherington in Outside Mullingar. (Photo by Samantha Mighdoll) For its fourth play of its 16th season, Palm Beach Dramaworks serves up a change of pace. For starters, John Patrick Shanley’s Outside Mullingar is a comedy, in fact a romantic comedy. And rather than “theater to think about,” the West Palm Beach company’s motto, it is more theater to touch … [Read more...]
MNM’s sublime ‘Side by Side’ adds to summer of Sondheim
It has now been seven years since a new Stephen Sondheim show (Road Show) has opened in New York and 21 years since one premiered on Broadway (Passion). So fans of the challenging, resolutely unconventional composer-lyricist have had to settle for the frequent revivals of his past musicals and the occasional retrospective revue of his work. In South Florida, theater companies … [Read more...]
Strangeness dominates juried show at Boca Museum of Art
The joy of writing about art comes from the same place I imagine a curator’s joy comes from: discovering something truly interesting. I was hoping to find this among the 149 pieces encompassing the 62nd All Florida Juried Competition and Exhibition at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. The show attracted more than 1,600 submissions. What I saw was art reflecting strangeness and … [Read more...]
‘Side Effects’ a lazy comedown for Soderbergh
“If I see another over-the-shoulder shot, I’m going to blow my brains out.” -- Steven Soderbergh, as quoted by Matt Damon in the Los Angeles Times, December 2010 Lo and behold, Steven Soderbergh, rebel in spirit more than in practice, has given us Side Effects, a film rife with over-the-shoulder shot-reverse-shots, constructed virtually the same way every director-for-hire … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Crisp, sharp ‘Race’; uneven ‘Baby GirL’
David Mamet is known for crafting fragmentary street dialogue. But when appropriate, he can also be hyper-articulate, as he is in Race, with the ping-ponging smart, and often smart-ass language of the two law partners ― one white, one black ― considering how to defend an uber-wealthy client accused of raping a black woman in a hotel room. The incident has distinct echoes of the … [Read more...]
‘Side Effects,’ ‘The Brothers Size’: Two area premieres
The estimable Michael Weller, who began his career with sprawling, large-cast dramas (Moonchildren, The Ballad of Soapy Smith), has lately taken to writing two-character plays that put disintegrating marriages under the microscope. His Side Effects, which opened this spring in New York and now has its South Florida premiere at Plantation’s Mosaic Theatre, is linked to his … [Read more...]