By James Foritano Cambridge, MA - In this reviewer’s opinion, George Bernard Shaw would have heartily approved the New York City-based Bedlam Theater’s rip-roaring presentation of “Saint Joan” at Central Square Theater. In a largely bare venue, a ‘mere’ four actors performing the usual 24 roles of Shaw’s play, proclaim, declaim, browbeat, instruct, seduce and confront the reigning powers of 15th century Europe as well as their would-be challengers. An ever-ready farm girl/general, Joan, savvy and intuition to the fore, God and St. Catherine and St. Margaret, et al, at her back, gains first a hearing with the powers-that-be in France, then carte-blanche with their quarter-masters who armor and horse her and deck her out with the blazons and insignia of the emerging nation-state of France. Rough soldiers tiptoe around this former farmer’s daughter in the barracks, their usual … [Read more...] about Bedlam’s Saint Joan at Central Square Theater
Theatre
Actors’ Shakespeare Project presents Measure for Measure
By Sarah Kinkade The irony is not lost as the audience settles into what was once the Middlesex County Courthouse. Every detail, from the image of Lady Justice on the floor to the hanging American flags, paints the picture of the American justice system. The audience is seated on both sides of the room, giving them the position of jurors about to review the events of a crime. This is appropriate, seeing how they are about to see Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, a play involving corruption, arrests, power, hypocrisy and the importance of justice versus mercy. The play was carefully chosen for a list inspired by the movement #FergusonSyllabus, made popular by Twitter, which aims to use theater to bring awareness to what is going on in the world, particularly concerning American politics in relation to the events of Ferguson, and the conversations needed to have in order to make a … [Read more...] about Actors’ Shakespeare Project presents Measure for Measure
AS “HOT LIST” Distribution Sites
Find out where to pick up the latest copy!* While Artscope is available in 700+ locations throughout New England, this list identifies distribution sites which have a large number of copies available to the public! CONNECTICUT Greenwich, CT Bruce Museum | 1 Museum Drive C. Parker Gallery | 17 E. Putnam Avenue Flinn Gallery | 101 West Putnam Avenue Hartford, CT Downtown Constitution Plaza Gallery | 1 Constitution Plaza Real Art Ways | 56 Arbor Street Wadsworth Atheneum | 600 Main Street Mystic, CT Mystic Arts Center | 9 Water Street New Britain, CT New Britain Museum of American Art | 56 Lexington Avenue New Canaan, CT Silvermine Guild | 1037 Silvermine Road New Haven, CT ArtSpace New Haven | 50 Orange Street Yale University School of Art (Art Center) | 1156 Chapel Street Yale University … [Read more...] about AS “HOT LIST” Distribution Sites
O.P.C. at American Repertory Theater
By James Foritano Cambridge, MA - Written by Eve Ensler (“The Vagina Monologues”) and directed by Pesha Rudnick, the new production at the American Repertory Theater, “O.P.C.” — or Obsessive Political Correctness — is a rich blend of mordant comedy, high drama, pathos and not a few revelations. Played by Kate Mulligan, Smith Weill, an ardent mainstream liberal, aspires just as ardently, arguably more ardently, than she espouses her principles, to gain a seat in the United States Congress. Her daughter, Romi, played by Olivia Thirlby, espouses the principles of liberal community that her mom, Smith, and dad Bruce, played by Michael T. Weiss, have bred into her by sterling and undeviating parental example. Trouble is, Romi, named for the former imperial capital where she was conceived, embraces her liberalism with a deep, dyed-in-the-wool militancy that baffles and even frightens … [Read more...] about O.P.C. at American Repertory Theater
The Boston Ballet presents Swan Lake
By James Foritano Boston, MA - Are We Prepared for Classical Ballet? That was the question I kept asking myself as I opened the gates of my perception, cynical, bleary, early 21st century perception, to take in a spectacle that had been first conjured on the stage of Moscow’s Maryinsky theater by choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov working with composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky on January 15, 1895. First off, had I taken along my inner child, preferably a girl-child since squint as I might, I saw no trucks on stage and no sudden ambushes erupt from the quivering scenery? No, I hadn’t. Well, maybe. Although the choreography has been adapted and added to by Boston Ballet’s Mikko Nissinen, it still resonates, movement by movement with Tchaikovsky’s moody, soaring music. And while Rodgers and Hammerstein nailed it in their mid-century American musical “South Pacific” … [Read more...] about The Boston Ballet presents Swan Lake
The Hub Theatre Company of Boston presents Israel Horowitz’s “6 Hotels” at Club Café
By James Foritano Boston, MA - I don’t remember seeing so many bodies strewn over a stage, in this case a small, intimate stage, unless, say, I was attending a Shakespearian tragedy — Hamlet comes bloodily to mind — as I recently saw at the Hub Theatre Company of Boston’s presentation of Israel Horowitz’s “6 Hotels” at Club Café. Perhaps more aptly, it seemed to reignite my own Cowboys and Indians fantasies from when, as a child of the 1950’s, I spotted a villain behind every bolster, slew them with arrow, bullet and war club, et al., only to resurrect them to tussle again. Such delicious slaughter I thought I had to put away with childish things, but now, as a man and roving critic, a little get-up-and-go and much good luck picked us off the sofa and transported myself and wife to a tight little production by the Hub Theater Company of six feisty playlets by Israel … [Read more...] about The Hub Theatre Company of Boston presents Israel Horowitz’s “6 Hotels” at Club Café