Ryan George, Andre Gainey, Gregg Weiner and Aygemang Clay in The Royale. (Photo by George Schiavone) There are many ways to tell a story, as demonstrated by the compact, yet high-energy The Royale, now receiving a knockout production at GableStage. It covers essentially the same ground as the sprawling, epic The Great White Hope, the 1969 Pulitzer Prize winner by Howard … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘110 in the Shade’; ‘Shorts Gone Wild 3’
The musical team of composer Harvey Schmidt and lyricist Tom Jones hit the jackpot their first time out with an intimate, endearing love story, off-Broadway’s The Fantasticks. But they wanted Broadway success, so they next adapted N. Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker on a larger scale, with a full, though essentially superfluous, chorus of townfolk, dramatic Agnes de Mille … [Read more...]
Theater reviews: ‘Lady Day,’ ‘Dames at Sea’
' With many a stage biography of a show business legend, there is the rise to stardom from humble roots and then the frequently inevitable descent in the second half of his or her life. Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, an intermissionless biographical nightclub act of the great jazz singer-songwriter Billie Holiday – born Eleanora Fagan – is almost entirely descent. The … [Read more...]
At the Four Arts, pages of faith, pages of light
If Hollywood can bring us a Noah with special effects, monks should be able to bring us a radiantly abstract Bible. And that’s exactly what they have done. After 15 years, elegantly crafted pages of gigantic size and glowing imagery are spreading the light. As far as the message goes, time will tell. The Saint John’s Bible is the first illuminated handwritten Bible to be … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘The Last Schwartz,’ ‘Old Times’
Whatever would the theater do without dysfunctional families? They are the subject of so many rip-roaring dramas and dark comedies, from Long Day’s Journey into Night to August: Osage County to Deborah Zoe Laufer’s Catskills clan in The Last Schwartz. First seen at Florida Stage in 2002, the play has had an active life at regional theaters across the country and has come close … [Read more...]
‘Before Midnight’: A threequel worth waiting for
Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight opens on a scene to which any divorced parent who received the short end of the custody stick can relate: the desire to stretch out precious time with one’s children before they inevitably vanish into the arms of that other person you used to love. In Before Sunset, the second film in what has become a trilogy shot in nine-year, real-time … [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...]
‘Flags’ delivers provocative, ambiguous message
A month ago I sat to write the art preview for the upcoming season and included a then-future exhibit at the Norton Museum that promised to make us think. But I did not know how just yet. Dave Cole: Flags of the World has been running since early November and delivered on its promise. A commanding 15-by-30 foot American flag hangs in the middle of the white room. This is the … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Sept. 10-14
Art: Five female artists explore the human figure in an upcoming exhibition called the Figuratively Speaking Invitational at The Art Gallery on the Eissey Campus of Palm Beach State College in Palm Beach Gardens, and there’s much more to it than is first apparent. The artwork consists of classical-styled paintings, modeled and molded ceramics, drawings and video, beautifully … [Read more...]