The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre was closing a very short run here in Boston, only four performances at the Boch Center Wang Theater from April 28-May 1 when my wife Madeleine and I sat together on aisle seats, row L for the Sunday matinee. It was a gorgeously warm and sunny spring day as we walked down Tremont Street from the Park Street Red Line stop, savoring views of Boston Common budding into a feast of green as troops of students were passing us by in gossamer spring dresses with gossamer youth gaiety. It was no sacrifice at all to enter the indoor spaces of a theater since we’d already had a very pleasant walk and Alvin Ailey Dance is always a rare, complex pleasure. They always have so many layered artistic impressions that they always make it seem, to this writer, as though he’d have to have a suite of hands all typing at once to articulate his … [Read more...] about ALVIN AILEY THEATRE KEEPS AMERICAN DANCE MOVING; “LET’S DANCE BOSTON!” CAPS CELEBRITY SERIES SEASON

With characters that seem to echo every facet of Shakespeare’s era — boisterous, sensual, quicksilver passionate, vengeful, generous, jealous, the Lyric Stage Company’s presentation of Lauren Gunderson’s “The Book of Will” is hilariously enjoyable. It’s impossible not to join in, tentatively, at first, even wonderingly — asking yourself, “who are these people” — then you grasp that they are not only “The Kings Men,” a company of outstandingly dedicated actors but their own men, never really off stage, and never more onstage than when they are playing, often along with Shakespeare himself, the bard’s own realistic fantasies. A handful plus of “The Kings Men” and their women are most often gathered around a wooden trestle table. With the Globe Theatre in the background, they lean in with their elbows on the table top — except when lifting them to quaff from a full tankard — which is … [Read more...] about THE BOOK OF WILL HAS LYRIC STAGE COMPANY AUDIENCES LAUGHING

We had plenty of time as we slow-walked to the Boston Lyric Opera’s new venue, on the waterfront this time, at the Leader Bank’s Pavilion (for two performances on October 1 and 3 as part of its “Street Stage” performance at outside venues), a huge tent just a couple minutes’ walk from the Silver Line’s “Silver Way” stop — third from South Station. Grey skies and seagulls… Who knew that not only would the venue be so accessible, but also the theme of Mascagni’s late 19th century opera, “Cavalleria Rusticana,” set in a Sicilian Village, on Easter Sunday — morning to be exact — so resonate with our own times — at least to this auditor. At the opera’s opening, Turiddu, sung by Adam Diegal, has just returned from military service, a return which already sounds both familiar and ominous. Turiddu is singing, lyrically, of his ardent love for Lola, which love sounds to the … [Read more...] about THE BOSTON LYRIC OPERA BLOSSOMS, AGAIN, WITH WATERFRONT PERFORMANCE OF CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA

Currently at the Lyric Stage is a warm, quirky and increasingly electrifying meeting between four characters who hail from the same small town located somewhere outside of The Big Apple, but not quite close enough to visit. Shani Farrell plays Patty Cooper and Katherine C. Shaver, her aunt, Luanne Cooper. We meet them seated at a work-table doing a menial job along with a third worker, Bari. The three women are clipping labels from women’s clothing revealing that each garment was ‘Made in China’ so that buyers’ will feel good as they gift phony clothing to people they wish to impress. As viewers, we could feel sorry for them, stuck in such paltry, dead-end jobs, but the two sisters possess some joie de vivre which is infectious. Both young, buoyed by their youth and happy to be employed, they each have passionate interests they are busy sustaining: Luanne, her … [Read more...] about LYRIC STAGE COMPANY’S ‘BE HERE NOW” IS INFECTIOUS