By Dale King The literary device known as the “willing suspension of disbelief” is “an essential element when experiencing any drama or work of fiction,” said poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who coined the phrase in 1817. “We may know very well that we are watching an actor or looking at marks on paper, but we wilfully accept them as real in order to fully experience what the … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: April 19-21
Art: A stunning series of space shuttle photos by photographer Mark Widick opens Saturday at the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County’s Lawrence A. Saunders Foundation Gallery in Lake Worth. The exhibition runs through May 18. The International Panoramic Photographic Society, Digital Imaging Association, and Google Earth have each published Widick’s photography. His … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Intense ‘Sweeney Todd,’ and ‘An Iliad’ tour de force
Stephen Sondheim is drawn to unconventional source material for his musicals, so it is hardly surprising that Slow Burn Theatre Company ― which gravitates towards the offbeat and challenging ― has an affinity for his shows. Now ending its fourth season, it tackles the great composer-lyricist’s masterwork, Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a grisly but undeniably … [Read more...]
Community theater: An excellent ‘Last Romance’ at Delray Playhouse
By Dale King On the playbill, Joe DiPietro’s The Last Romance is described as a “comedy.” But the show, now being staged at the Delray Beach Playhouse, is not simply ha-ha funny. It is a deft combination of lamentations and laugher, a tribute to love in the golden years that’s neither a caricature nor an understatement. Three talented theater veterans, a young man back from … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Smart ‘Lungs,’ engaging ‘4000 Miles’
Duncan Macmillan’s 90-minute conversation, Lungs, is both up-to-the-minute and timeless. While it is certainly a new play, it has already had more productions than most scripts that The Theatre at Arts Garage’s Lou Tyrrell is used to dealing with. But Macmillan’s way with dialogue is so crisp, glib and theatrical, it is easy to see why the Delray Beach artistic director would … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Terrific ‘Millie’; sensational ‘In the Heights’
The musical theater, that uniquely American invention, has come a long way in the past 90 years. But if you yearn for the good old days when musicals made little sense and their cartoonish plots were little more than excuses to get from one production number to the next, then, boy, has the Maltz Jupiter Theatre got a show for you. It is Thoroughly Modern Millie, based on the … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘Billy Elliot,’ ‘Flashdance’ and ‘Waist Watchers’
It is OK to be different and to follow your dreams. Sentiments like that seem banal in a contemporary urban context, but for a 10-year-old son of a Northern England coal miner who yearns to be a ballet dancer such aspirations are the stuff of involving drama. Or perhaps musical theater. They are, of course, the dilemma of Billy Elliot, the youngster first encountered in the … [Read more...]
Community theater: ‘The Foreigner’ delights at Lake Worth Playhouse
By Dale King Larry Shue’s play The Foreigner is a hilarious sum of its frequently farcical parts. The current Lake Worth Playhouse production, which combines touches of Forrest Gump, The Beverly Hillbillies and Mork and Mindy, continues through March 17. The heart, soul and funny bone of this show is the character Charlie Baker, played with over-the-top comic zeal by Jason … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Feb. 23-24
Film: A new film based on a magic realism-infused novel by Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima, focuses on a small boy, Antonio (Luke Ganalon), who is introduced to the spirit world by his grandmother, Ultima (Miriam Colon), who is sort of a witch doctor, a conjurer of spells and an alternative healer. The compelling, if disorienting film is directed by Carl Franklin, probably best … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘Caboodle’ and ‘Doubt’: Certain theatrical satisfaction
South Florida playwright Michael McKeever has cranked out so many well-crafted full-length stage scripts over the past two decades that it is easy to overlook that he has also quietly mastered the short play format. That should be harder to ignore now that he has compiled seven of his brief sketches into an evening he calls The Whole Caboodle. First performed from 1998 to … [Read more...]