Theater: The best one-person shows feature a versatile performer sprinting through dozens of characters. Think of Lily Tomlin in the Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe or Whoopi Goldberg’s theater pieces. Add to that rarified company, Miami’s own Elena Marcia Garcia, a genuinely funny creature, as she proves for 90 minutes in her new solo show, Fuácata! (Or a Latina’s Guide to Surviving the Universe), playing in its premiere engagement for Zoetic Stage at the Arsht Center through this Sunday. Garcia introduces us to denizens of South Florida’s Hispanic culture, lively, quirky souls that audiences of all stripes will find they have much in common with. Directed by Zoetic artistic director Stuart Meltzer. Call (305) 949-6722 for tickets.
Film: Fresh from the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival, returning to theaters for a commercial run, is a wry Israeli comedy of faith and fate, The Women’s Balcony. It revolves around a tragic incident at a small, decrepit Jerusalem synagogue where the balcony designated for the congregation’s womenfolk collapses, leaving the rabbi incapacitated and his wife in a coma. The community pitches in to rebuild the house of worship, led by a young, headstrong rabbi who bluntly claims that the women brought the calamity onto themselves. When the women push back, it leads to a battle of the sexes, loosely based on the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata. Opening this weekend at several area theaters.
Music: Giuseppe Verdi first made his mark in 1842 with Nabucco, but it was a trio of operas 10 years later that turned him into a household name. The first of those three (the other two are La Traviata and Il Trovatore) was Rigoletto, in 1851, which told the story of a jester working for a cruel, libidinous duke who ends up setting his sights on the only thing the jester cares for in the world, his beautiful daughter Gilda. This weekend, Palm Beach Opera continues its season with three performances of this opera, whose most famous excerpt is the aria La donna è mobile, which you know even if you don’t know the words. Sunday afternoon features the fine baritone Michael Chioldi as Rigoletto, with Andrea Carroll as Gilda and Alexey Tatarintsev as the duke. Tonight at the Kravis Center, Alexander Krasnov is Rigoletto, Deanna Breiwick is Gilda, and Alok Kumar (also an attorney) is the duke. Jay Lesenger is in charge of the stage production and Antonello Allemandi conducts. The curtain rises at 7:30 tonight at the Kravis and 2 p.m. Sunday. Call 833-7888 or visit pbopera.org, or call 832-7469 or visit www.kravis.org.
Art: A walk down South Beach of a day puts you in contact with Art Deco architecture, much of it carefully preserved, and if you’re paying attention to it, it might put you in mind of the Roaring 20s and the exuberant decadence of a society dancing itself silly to le jazz hot. But the Deco movement was not confined to Europe and North America; as it turns out, Japan had a powerful Deco modernist movement itself, and the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens is now showing the first exhibition outside Japan of this movement and its artifacts. Now on display through May 21, Japan Deco contains almost 200 works from the Levenson Collection, which features everything from textiles to metalwork to graphic design and painting. It’s interesting to think of how strong this movement amid a time of rapidly growing imperialism that would bring the nation in bloody conflict with the West not much later. Visit morikami.org for more information, museum hours and ticket prices.