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Chicago Theater Review: CONVERSATIONS ON A HOMECOMING (Strawdog Theatre Company)
WHERE BLARNEY GOES TO DIE Who’d have guessed that a 90-minute Irish play would be set in a bar where everyone gets sozzled and crocked much sooner that an hour and a half could ever allow? But in his 1985 exercise in forensic disillusionment, acclaimed Irish author Tom Murphy wants to subvert stereotypes as much…
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Regional Theater Review: THE LIQUID PLAIN (Oregon Shakespeare Festival)
NOT PLAIN BUT TOO LIQUID In her tale of two slaves who seek passage back to Africa in 1791 Rhode Island, Naomi Wallace has constructed a compelling narrative based on true events and people. Yet in her personal voyage to examine the slave trade and those who profited from it and rebelled against it, Wallace…
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Bay Area Theater Preview: GOOD PEOPLE (Marin Theatre Company)
GOOD PEOPLE GETS BAY AREA PREMIERE Having seen productions of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Good People at both the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles and Steppenwolf in Chicago, I can attest that this is the playwright’s best work (it is currently the most produced play in America). Knowing the quality and professionalism of Marin Theatre Company, whose…
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Regional Theater Review: MY FAIR LADY (Oregon Shakespeare Festival)
A LOVERLY LITTLE LADY The 1956 musical My Fair Lady, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, was so transplendent in production values that the myriad subsequent revivals all strive for the same glorious sets and highly ornate costumes, even going so far as to emulate Cecil Beaton’s original costume design. While the prohibitive costs involved…
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Film Review: THE WORLD’S END (directed by Edgar Wright)
THEIR WORLD AND WELCOME TO IT In college more so than high school, I dressed like that: Black trench coat (but mine was brown). Black slacks. Doc Martens. I never owned that Sisters of Mercy T-shirt, but I did own the album with that cover. That was Gary King’s wardrobe on the last day of…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN (Geffen Playhouse)
THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER:OR IS IT? Smart, funny and thought-provoking, Rapture, Blister Burn has arrived at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood with the original New York cast in tow. Written by Gina Gionfriddo (Pulitzer Prize finalist for Becky Shaw) the show puts a new spin on the often beaten to death themes of gender…
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San Francisco Music Preview: SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY 2013-14 OPENING NIGHT GALA (Davies Symphony Hall)
AUDRA MCDONALD MAKES A RARE VISIT TO SAN FRANCISCO As if San Francisco Symphony’s (SFS) annual opening night galas were not the most anticipated events of any year, SFS and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas have announced that singer and actress Audra McDonald will join the orchestra to perform selections from the American Songbook for…
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Film Review: THÉRÈSE (directed by Claude Miller)
WHEN BANAL IS SAID AND DONE Claude Miller’s final film Thérèse, based on François Mauriac’s novel Thérèse Desqueyroux, is a masterfully directed, superbly acted, richly photographed and beautifully designed costume drama that thoughtfully illustrates profound aspects of the human condition, and feels as dull and familiar as so many other French or British period pieces…
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Film Review: SHORT TERM 12 (directed by Destin Daniel Cretton)
YET TO COME TO TERM I’m sure Short Term 12, written and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, was an earnest effort made with care and love and all the best intentions. I’m sure Mr. Cretton was touched by the subject matter – at-risk teens in a group home and the 20-somethings who supervise them –…
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Bay Area Theater Review: NO MAN’S LAND (Berkeley Repertory Theatre)
A PRODUCTION OF, AND IN, NO MAN’S LAND It seems that people are forever cursed by their feeble attempts to make their lives neat and tidy. Whatever illusion of structure is created’”a calendar, a grocery list, a mortgage, a marriage license’”life is constantly changing. Humankind uses religion, science and the arts to explain away this…
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Chicago Theater Review: PINK MILK (Oracle Theatre and White Elephant)
HEROISM AND ESTROGEN Well worth seeing, this stylized 100-minute tour de theatre nonetheless requires’”and rewards’”an informed audience: It needs eager theatergoers already aware of the story it tells so well. Despite depicting the same tragic tale, Pink Milk is not to be confused with Breaking the Code, Hugh Whitemore’s superb 1986 drama and acclaimed 1996…
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San Francisco Theater Review: CAN YOU DIG IT? THE –˜60’s – BACK DOWN EAST 14TH (The Marsh)
YEAH, I CAN DIG IT The third installment of monologuist Don Reed’s autobiographical coming-of-age trilogy has been extended yet again at the Marsh, and following on the heels of this San Francisco run, Can You Dig It? The ‘60s – Back Down East 14th will move to the Marsh Berkeley. The first installment, East 14th,…
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Bay Area Theater Preview: LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN (California Shakespeare Theater)
CAL SHAKES’ BIGGEST FAN The titular character in Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan is a vivacious young woman, married only two years, who never coughs or displays any other signs of illness. At one point in the play, she refuses to shake hands with a visitor. “My hands are all wet with the roses,”…
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San Francisco Theater Review: HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (Boxcar Theatre)
EXTRA INCHES East Berlin expat Hedwig was forced to leave a rather important bit of himself’”later herself’”behind the Wall in order to pass physical exams and immigrate to America with the G.I. of her dreams. Move ahead one year: impoverished, divorced and the casualty of a distortedly bungled gender removal procedure, creator John Cameron Mitchell’s…
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Documentary Review: THE ACT OF KILLING (directed by Joshua Oppenheimer; co-directed by Anonymous & Christine Cynn)
THE ACT OF REINVENTING A MASSACRE If there were a subtitle to Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing, it could be “A Re-enactment by Fun-Loving War Criminals.” In this unsettling documentary, a cadre of aging Indonesian gangsters relives their part in a pogrom against communists in the 1960s. In the political chaos of that time,…
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Regional Theater Review: CYMBELINE (Oregon Shakespeare Festival)
NO PROBLEM WITH THIS “PROBLEM PLAY” In Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s performance of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, director Bill Rauch manages to brew a potion of familiar Shakespearean themes including switched identities, jealousy and innocence wronged, while adding a lighthearted dollop of a lovely princess, an evil queen, and a misguided king. What results is a sparkling showstopper….
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Film Review: PRINCE AVALANCHE (directed by David Gordon Green)
PART OF THE AVALANCHE OF INNOCUOUS FILMS Over the past few years a new cinematic sub-genre has emerged – the innocuous independent film. These are low-budget (by Hollywood standards), professionally made movies which, though not exactly objectionable, have very little entertainment or artistic value. David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche, based on the film Either Way…
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Chicago Theater Review: INVASION! (Silk Road Rising)
AN ARAB ZELIG Supple, swift and slippery, this 80-minute, four-character satire by Jonas Hassen Khemiri (translated by Rachel Wilson-Broyles) skewers Islamophobia and its many mutations. Its trick is to center our self-terrorism on an exotic name borrowed from an old play. Meaning everything and nothing, the fake persona “Abulkasem” takes on as many protean forms…
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San Diego Theater Review: DOUBLE INDEMNITY (Old Globe in Balboa Park)
STAGE NOIR In many ways, the stage adaptation of James Cain’s novel, Double Indemnity, is a radical departure from the iconic film from director/writer Billy Wilder. The film’”co-written by Cain’s contemporary and rival Raymond Chandler, who was known to deride Cain’s novels’”contains deliciously noir dialogue that Wilder and Chandler used to get past the censors….
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Chicago Theater Review: SLOWGIRL (Steppenwolf)
A HIGHLY ENGAGING SLOWGIRL After a traumatic accident, millennial teenager Becky (Rae Gray) visits her uncle Sterling (William Petersen) in Costa Rica, where her constant chattering disrupts his nearly monastic lifestyle. As the two learn to live with each other, layers of regret, anxiety, and fear begin to surface. Playwright Greg Pierce treats his characters…
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