MUST SEE: "A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK." On the night I saw it at the Huntington Theatre's second stage at the Calderwood, the audience wouldn't stop clapping until this killer two-man cast came out to take another bow. Penned by Ken Urban and directed by Tony Award nominee Colman Domingo, this swift and scorching play stars [...]
BLADE RUNNER 2049 continues a tale that asks what it means to be human, but despite being almost an hour longer than the original, is a much more routine experience, building on the first installment without expanding its thematic footprint. The sequel lacks the tension, the mystery, and the emotional resonance of 1982's BLADE RUNNER, but is [...]
Wondering what TO SEE and NOT TO SEE onstage? Here's my take on what I've seen lately: (L to R): Victor Shopov, Aina Adler, Robert Orzalli, Ashley Risteen (Photo by Richard Hall/Silverline Images) FACELESS: SEE it! This New England premiere by young playwright Selina Fillinger and season opener at Zeitgeist Stage Company is [...]
By any measure, "Merrily We Roll Along" the Huntington Theatre Company's season opener is a first rate show with a brilliant cast, directed by Maria Friedman who recreates her smash hit London production with a challenging book by George Furth about luck and choice, and a Sondheim score that sheds light on those murky twists [...]
Here are three to see onstage right now beginning with CONSTELLATIONS presented by Underground Railway Theater at the Central Square Theater. This is one of the most fascinating and brilliantly performed productions I've ever seen locally, as emotionally charged as it is intellectually stimulating. I was entranced at first sight of the set-- a luminous, [...]
In the last days of summer, an out-of-this-world, world premiere, end-of-the-world musical has sprung up at OBERON (through September 8) the A.R.T.'s second stage where anything can and often does happen. BURN ALL NIGHT seems to be channeling the zeitgeist as it speaks to looming disaster: four millennials trying to find their way through life [...]
What would you do if you could conjure up deceased friends and relatives and re-visit your past? That is the premise of "Marjorie Prime" a new film based on a Pulitzer Prize-nominated play by Jordan Harrison which made a splash at Sundance. I found the film more suggestive than the play, and it is having [...]
A few more SCREEN GRABS in the dog days of summer--and none of the following are dogs: DUNKIRK: If you haven't already, see this masterful and intimate experience of the grueling WWII battle when the Nazis had 400,000 Allied troops-- British, French, and Belgian--trapped on the beach at Dunkirk but they never surrendered; [...]
Two musicals have just descended on the Boston area: one old, one new--each with its ups and downs. Mara Cecilia as PEGGY SAWYER First,"Come and meet those dancing feet/On the avenue I'm taking you to/42ND STREET"--now in Waltham at the REAGLE THEATRE just finishing up its 49th season! This is the final weekend of [...]
After combing through the listings of franchise-fatigued superheroes now clogging big screens everywhere, I've come up with a list of well-made, challenging, and engrossing films for folks as sick of vacuous action adventure as I am. Over the next few days I'll write about the following films that left me reeling: BABY DRIVER, THE BIG [...]
