Playwright A.R. Gurney turned 65 the year he wrote the canine comedy Sylvia, so it is completely understandable that he had male menopause on his mind. Taking a break from his usual pre-occupation with the cultural peculiarities of WASPs, he gives us a peculiar romance ― between a guy mired in the crisis of midlife and a stray mixed-breed mutt. Now on view at the Boca Raton … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Oct. 6-7
Art: Continuum, an exhibition in collaboration with Florida Atlantic University’s master of fine arts in visual arts program that features the artwork of 10 current graduate candidates and 10 alumni, is on display at the main gallery space of the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County in Lake Worth. The exhibition, which includes paintings, ceramics and photography as well as … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Rigby sparkles as ‘Peter’; Mad Cat’s take on ‘Hamlet’ engrossing
Reviewers are by nature a skeptical bunch, so when former Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby announced ― some 22 years ago ― that she was reinventing herself as a musical theater performer and taking to the skies as Peter Pan, it seemed gimmick casting at best. Undaunted by critical doubters, she took her craft seriously, training to be an actress as diligently as she did as an … [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...]
Theater roundup: Lovely ‘Fantasticks’; uneven ‘Twelfth Night’
Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s The Fantasticks, the longest-running stage show in modern history at 17,162 consecutive performances, seems an easy show to produce, but it is hardly foolproof. I once saw a production that made the fatal mistake of enlarging its simple, elegant, piano and harp accompaniment to a full-size orchestra, adding a chorus of seven and lots of … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 13-15
Theater: As its name implies, Palm Beach Dramaworks usually sticks to plays of dramatic substance, but the company goes lighter in the summertime, usually with a musical. This season it is at least continuing its pre-occupation with classics by reviving The Fantasticks, that off-Broadway Energizer Bunny, which ran for 42 years originally, with its simple, allegorical tale of … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: June 29-July 1
Film: No, it will never be confused for art, or even much of a story line, but if you could use a few laughs these days, you have got to see Seth MacFarlane’s feature film directing debut, Ted. MacFarlane voices the title character, John’s (Mark Wahlberg) foul-mouthed teddy bear, and everything he says is as funny as it is crude. Ted is getting in the way of Wahlberg’s … [Read more...]
On Broadway, a bad year for musicals, a good one for plays
This Sunday evening, when the American Theatre Wing hits the airwaves with the 66th annual Tony Awards show ― Broadway’s prime national marketing tool ― it will put on its bravest face and claim that the commercial theater is better than ever. In fact, by most subjective opinions ― including mine ― this was the worst season for new musicals in decades. Even the Tonys’ … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: June 1-3
Film: Before Harvey Weinstein cheapens it with his announced English-language remake, take a look at Untouchables (Intouchables in French), a rich-poor, black-white odd couple tale about a wealthy widower (Francois Cluzot), who becomes a quadriplegic from a hang-gliding accident. Improbably, he selects a black ex-con (Omar Sy) to be his caregiver-aide and, yeah, you guessed it, … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: From a classic French novel to contemporary American whimsy
Hardly broken and certainly not in need of fixing, the hugely successful epic musical of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables turned 25 a couple of years ago, so producer Cameron Mackintosh celebrated the milestone of the international hit by lavishing a new, redesigned and restaged production on it. The work of directing team of Laurence Connor and James Powell is more conventional … [Read more...]