Art: The most recognizable art form the West knows from countries such as Iran and Afghanistan is what is generally still called the Oriental rug, a tapestry rich in symbolism, not just of design but of color, shape and size. An ancient tradition that still is alive today, the contemporary rugs of Afghanistan include motifs from that nation’s tumultuous recent history, including tanks and other weaponry. An exhibit of more than 40 of these rugs has just opened at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, and runs through the end of July. Afghan Rugs: The Contemporary Art of Central Asia, is paired with an exhibit of feminist needlework by American artist Elaine Reichek. Museum hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $14 for adults, $12 for seniors, and $6 for students with ID. Call 561-392-2500 or visit www.bocamuseum.org for more information.
Theater: This weekend only, at Fort Lauderdale’s Parker Playhouse, Debra Jo Rupp (of TV’s That ’70s Show) stars in the one-woman off-Broadway show, Becoming Dr. Ruth. Yes, you can spend 90 minutes with the pint-sized Holocaust survivor who became a household name as a sex therapist. The show has the usual solo play problems of lack of dramatic context (Why is this woman telling me her life story?) and the artifice of dubious phone calls and recorded voices, but Rupp’s winning impersonation trumps all that. And best of all, after all performances except Friday evening, the real Dr. Ruth — still a pistol at 86 — joins the post-show discussion and Q&A session. Through Sunday. Tickets $28-$66. Call (954) 462-0222.
Film: Woody Allen makes a move annually, but for those who want more of the Woodman, try a film called Fading Gigolo, starring, written and directed by John Turturro as a florist in the Hasidic section of Brooklyn. Because of circumstances, he falls into a side business as a gigolo, sexually servicing lonely women such as Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara (of Modern Family). Yes, it is far-fetched, but if you were writing and casting a movie, you might put yourself in this, um, position too. Without mimicking Allen’s cadences, Turturro conveys the neuroses of an Allen character and, best of all, playing his sidekick/pimp is Allen himself, in one of his best performances in years. And like an Allen movie, it has a great cast, including Liev Schreiber, Vanessa Paradis and Tonya Pinkins. Opening this weekend at the Living Room Theaters in Boca Raton and elsewhere.
Music: Jules Massenet’s opera Thaïs, written in 1894, lives on these days mostly through a piece of instrumental music, the Meditation, a sweet, sentimental violin solo still familiar to hosts of people that don’t know it’s from an opera. Florida Grand Opera is closing its season this year with Massenet’s tale of a courtesan whom a Cenobitic monk tries to reform, only to fall lustily in love with her himself. The French composer was a master of bourgeois eroticism, and it made him a very wealthy man in his day. You can see what all the fuss was about this weekend at the Ziff Ballet Opera House in Miami when soprano Angela Mortellaro takes the title role in one of her two appearances as Thais (the other four are being sung by the fine Cuban-American soprano Eglise Gutierrez); bass-baritone Kristopher Irmiter sings the role of Athanaël. The opera begins at 8 p.m. Saturday; for more information, call 1-800-741-1010 or visit www.fgo.org.