Life of Riley: Alain Resnais’s final film (Kino, $19.99 Blu-ray, $17.99 DVD), which premiered just three weeks before his death, is an effervescent comedy that sees the French cinema giant accepting his transition with grace, laughter and sardonic self-awareness. Adapted from the English play of the same name by Alan Ayckbourn, it charts the machinations of George Riley, a … [Read more...]
Circus consultant helped reimagine, revitalize ‘Pippin’
Setting the musical Pippin inside a circus, as the recent Tony Award-winning revival does, seems perfectly natural to Gypsy Snider, the show’s co-choreographer and circus consultant. “Circus is dangerous, physically dangerous. That is a theme in ‘Pippin,’ the idea that you would risk your life every day on stage. That became very much a part of re-writing the show,” she says. … [Read more...]
All-sculpture show riveting at the Cultural Council
By Lucy Lazarony At the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County, the walls of the main gallery have gone white. Not a single piece of two-dimensional art is on display. Instead, the focus is on the three-dimensional art of acclaimed sculptors and Palm Beach county residents Alexander Krivosheiw, G.E. Olsen and Jeff Whyman. Krivosheiw expresses himself through hand-forged … [Read more...]
Amid the goofing, a standout Marie at PB Opera’s ‘La Fille’
Palm Beach Opera wrapped up its significant 53rd season with humor, choosing to follow its February world premiere exploration of post-World War II Holocaust survivors in New York (Enemies, a Love Story) with a lighthearted bel canto comedy. It’s been nearly 40 years since Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment has been performed at Palm Beach Opera, the last time with the legendary … [Read more...]
Director Boorman unveils long-awaited sequel to ‘Hope and Glory’
Englishman John Boorman has directed 22 films, and is probably best known for Point Blank and Deliverance, two of his early, violent dramas. But in 1988, he earned three Oscar nominations — best picture, best direction, best screenplay — for Hope and Glory, his autobiographical memoir of growing up amid the shelling of London during World War II. Now, 26 years later, comes a … [Read more...]
The remarkable journey of Ellar Coltrane
Boyhood, perhaps the most acclaimed film of 2014, was a risk on many levels. Foremost among them was the pressure put on a 6-year-old kid named Ellar Coltrane to carry a movie that revolved around him, that he would grow before the viewers’ eyes into an accomplished actor as he grew — literally — from 6 to 18 years old. But the risk by writer-director Richard Linklater paid … [Read more...]
Weekend picks: March 21-22
Theater: The Maltz Jupiter Theatre, it seems, keeps getting better as the challenges it selects increase. There is perhaps no more difficult a musical for a theater of the Maltz’s size to carry off than Les Misérables, but director Mark Martino makes it look easy. He gives the epic show a cinematic sweep, without resorting to the show’s original turntable staging. Yes, he … [Read more...]
‘Gett’: A bill of divorcement, Israeli-style
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem begins in a courtroom, and, like 12 Angry Men, never leaves it. But unlike Reginald Rose’s morality play, there are no heroic shifts in conscience or unequivocal denunciations of prejudice in this legal drama. Instead, we become the voyeurs of a wrenching case study of religious chauvinism masquerading as proper litigation, a tunnel of … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: March 14-15
Theater: Cole Porter’s 1934 shipboard farce, Anything Goes, contains a score of hits that remain standards of the American Songbook 80 years later. The script — dusted off and freshened up by two contemporary wags, Timothy Crouse and John Weidman — is a string of groan-worthy jokes, but at least it delivers the songs efficiently. Now playing the Kravis Center through Sunday is … [Read more...]
Community theater: Grim but gripping ‘Cabaret’ excels at Stage Door
By Dale King The musical Cabaret is dark and forbidding, much like its setting, Berlin in the 1930s. Broward Stage Door Theatre’s rendition of the award-winning 1966 show masterfully mixes the hedonistic characters who inhabited backstreet Berlin with the hopeful souls who dreamed of something better, but often felt the sharp slap of failure. This stellar production, which … [Read more...]