While some critics would say Nathaniel Hawthorne’s dark tales are not of this world, The House of the Seven Gables reveals a work very much of two worlds, or rather two Americas — the new and the old. Woven from the black cloak of Calvinism but enlightened by the threads…
“There it is. This is the house I was born in and grew up in. It’s still standing. It’s painted but this is not the house I knew,” affirms 68-year-old Silvia Morini in the documentary Our House in Havana. Director Stephen Olsson’s film (screened as part of the Cuban Cinema…
The key to great parody is that it hits home in contemporary society. Although Cuban playwright Rolando Ferrer’s play Lila, La Mariposa (Lila, the Butterfly) was meant to be a criticism of Havana and the 1950s when it was first written back in 1954, Teatro Avante’s rendition continues the tradition…
Walking out of the Caldwell Theatre’s production of Snakebit, you can be certain you will not hear a playgoer over age 60 sigh, “Ahhh! To be young again!” This hard-hitting drama leaves no room to fantasize about the potency and possibility of the thirties. Playwright David Marshall Grant’s increasingly complex…
Remember those old Mickey Rooney flicks where all the “kids” would be sittin’ around just shootin’ the breeze? Suddenly Mickey would jump up and declare: “Hey, kids, I got a great idea. Let’s put on a show!” In a matter of seconds, a piano rolls in. Judy Garland strikes a…
A strong monologue, very much like a steaming jazz solo, should always seem improvisational, even if it’s not. Like music it moves and gathers momentum and in doing so, meaning. No long-winded plot summary or a pedantic sermon, the final monologue in GableStage’s production of Warren Leight’s Side Man does…
Ceremonia Inconclusa (Unfinished Ceremony).
Created by, directed by, and starring Magaly Agüero. Artemis Performance Network’s Performance Space 742, 742 SW 16th Ave; 305-643-6611.
We take a seat in front of the screen, stage, or box to disengage. Sometimes it has to do with art — a riveting portrayal of the human drama — sometimes not. TV and film provide many ways to disengage, through electronic hypnosis, Surround sound inoculation, big-screen digital imagery, and…
If all the world’s a stage, then surely a courtroom is the place to see some of the best drama. Just think of Johnnie Cochran, striding across a courtroom and slamming down his briefcase, or O.J. Simpson, struggling to squeeze his huge hand into the glove that didn’t fit. A…
Remember Love, American Style? It was a lighthearted attempt at feminism and gender-bending, which somehow always ended up in bawdy, wide-angle shots of breasts and behinds and concluded in catty dialogues that took place in a huge, brass four-poster bed. As a youngster I tuned in for the opening shot…
Over the River and Through the Woods (written by Joe DiPietro and directed by Kenneth Kay) is one of those plays you walk out of saying, “Gee, my mother would have loved that,” and lo and behold, you look around and there is your mother — and all of her…
Before Women Who Love Too Much and Codependent No More, there was Georgia O’Keeffe and her watercolors. Characteristically dressed in a long black sweater, O’Keeffe peers out at the audience from the dimly lit stage of the Hollywood Boulevard Theatre. “Watercolors are tricky,” she observes in Lucinda McDermott’s O’Keeffe! “When…
Praying with the Enemy
Immigration is a physical act. A body of water is crossed; a mountain range grows smaller and smaller until it appears to be the knuckles of a hand resting on the earth. A dissonant jumble of consonants and vowels seeps into our thoughts until our dreams are flooded. We fall…
Something Cloudy, Something Clear
In 1615 John Donne did something that changed the course of his life, and four hundred years later, the life of Vivian Bearing Ph.D.: He became an Anglican priest. Donne dedicated his life to writing religious prose and poetry. As a priest and poet he explored the barriers of mortality…
What happens when you put Hot Lips Houlihan in yellow chiffon three sizes too tight on a roof with a ghost who looks like he could be a skinny second cousin of Elvis Presley? Paste this scene against a Technicolor blue sky reminiscent of those you see in toilet paper…
Critics die. Audiences are reincarnated. The only true test of a work of art’s value is its timelessness, and perhaps its timeliness. Timelessness is the ability of drama to say something about the human condition in a way that penetrates generation after generation of audiences. Timeliness is the director’s (in…
Be honest. If someone told you ahead of time that you were going to see a play that depicts the coming-of-age of a young black girl somewhere in the South during the mid-Sixties, you might want to respond, “What a shame! I have a root canal to attend to.” Or,…
