by James Foritano BOSTON, MA--It’s an unimposing facade and a small stage inside the Boston Playwrights’ Theater at 949 Commonwealth Avenue, so if you take your cues from looks and size, you’re not prepared at all for the tragic grandeur of “Brawler,” authored by Walt McGough, and directed in a world premiere collaboration with Kitchen Theatre Company by M. Bevin O’Gara. Tragedy, rightly understood, doesn’t seem to appeal to us anymore, the way it did to the ancient Greeks or to Shakespeare. We cherish our “innocence” and bad things just seem to happen to innocent people without their connivance — like extreme weather and ambushes with heavy weapons. Very bad luck, in other words, but unavoidable. The four characters in “Brawler” are, to different degrees, anything but innocent, in spite of the fact that they are all more or less dedicated to nothing more harmful than … [Read more...] about WALT MCGOUGH’S BRAWLER AT THE BOSTON PLAYWRIGHT THEATRE
Theatre
THE WHITE CARD AT THE EMERSON PARAMOUNT CENTER
by James Foritano BOSTON, MA--Claudia Rankine’s The White Card, playing through April 1 at the Emerson Paramount Center on the Robert J. Orchard Stage, is about both the privileges of whiteness in a multi-racial society and the enervating struggles of a family in conflict and confrontation. Either one of these themes is huge enough to be handled alone, but both at once, however deftly explored, seemed, to this reviewer to overwhelm rather than enlighten. “Charles,” Daniel Gerroll’s character, is a prosperous developer of everything between and including the polar opposites of hospitals and private prisons, trying to live down the conflict between the nurturing and punishing aspects of these institutions by establishing a foundation which aspires to collect and forefront black art and artists. “Charlotte,” played by Karen Pittman, is a black artist invited for dinner … [Read more...] about THE WHITE CARD AT THE EMERSON PARAMOUNT CENTER
THE BUSINESS OF ART: ART FREE FOR ALL
By Nancy Nesvet Okay, so now we acknowledge that the world of art is tied to economics. Only the Venice Biennale and other recent exhibitions after that model survive to showcase the best of new art not for sale or created with economic appreciation in mind, only the other kind. There is no shame in admitting people buy art to hang on their walls while also hoping the work goes up in value; that supports galleries who pay artists, a noble and necessary employment. The art fairs are a great venue for creating an art marketplace for collectors to buy and galleries to sell. But let’s acknowledge the distinction between and value of art fairs for fun and profit and the Biennales, Documentas and other not for sale art venues. That value was recognized until the recent economic debacle of Documenta 14 at Kassel and Athens. Not only did Documenta 14 lose millions of euros, but the loss … [Read more...] about THE BUSINESS OF ART: ART FREE FOR ALL
THEATER PREVIEW: BOSTON OPERA COLLABORATIVE PRESENTS “AS ONE” AT PICKMAN HALL
By James Foritano Cambridge, MA — I’m occupying the cat-bird seat in the intimate recital space of Cambridge’s Longy School of Music at Bard College at a pre-performance interview with cast members of a new operetta, “As One,” which will be presented January 25-28 by the Boston Opera Collaborative at Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall. The two male vocalists sitting at our conference table are young, intense, and talented. They are bursting with information about what it’s like to represent with their resonant baritones the existential struggles of a young man, a boy really, transitioning to a mature woman. I’m trying to focus as much as possible on the sense of what they’re saying, but the sensuousness of their trained voices short circuits, repeatedly, my hard- headed note taking. I’m rescued, anchored by an anecdote related to me by vocal coach Jean Anderson Collier, sitting to my … [Read more...] about THEATER PREVIEW: BOSTON OPERA COLLABORATIVE PRESENTS “AS ONE” AT PICKMAN HALL
THE HUNTINGTON THEATER COMPANY PRESENTS A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK
By James Foritano BOSTON, MA -- How best to introduce a play reeking with the ambiguities and ambivalences of the human situation is perhaps to start with a few paragraphs of bare facts. The title of the play under review is “A Guide for the Homesick” by playwright Ken Urban. Its current run takes place from October 6 through November at the Huntington Theatre Company’s new South End venue, the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. The main actors on stage are Mckinley Belcher III, playing “Teddy,” and Samuel H. Levine, playing “Jeremy,” under the direction of Colman Domingo. The setting and time are Amsterdam. Teddy’s hotel room. Evening and the following morning. January 2011. All these bare facts come together in a most accommodating and highly professional manner to hand the attending audience (you and me) a “guide” that is so “hot” you have to keep tossing … [Read more...] about THE HUNTINGTON THEATER COMPANY PRESENTS A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK
Constellations at Central Square Theater
By James Foritano CAMBRIDGE, MA -- The current play produced by the Underground Railway Theater at The Central Square Theater is a serious and not-so-serious remake of romantic love, dating and destiny in the light of the latest cosmic discoveries. Award-winning English playwright Nick Payne was inspired to write “Constellations” after watching a NOVA program about the startling idea being seriously considered by quantum physics that our “universe” may actually be a “multiverse” of parallel universes in which everything and everyone are constantly being duplicated as we speak — and act, live — and die. Taking this revolutionary idea out of the test tube and applying it to a present-day artisan bee-keeper, Roland, played by Nael Nacer, and quantum physicist, Marianne, played by Marianna Bassham, speeds up and splits up the eternal present of “hooking up”/“settling down” … [Read more...] about Constellations at Central Square Theater