My take on more of what I have seen on screens large and small lately. (Titles are hyperlinked to their trailers.) PEAK SEASON offers a soft slice of reality as two wildly different people who are either unavailable or unlikely to commit to a romantic relationship-- connect. It happens unexpectedly but for the conventions of [...]
I LOVE movies. But the summer, post pandemic and capped off by the writers' strike, was a dud. This fall seemed on its way to falling flat-- until today when I saw the best film of the year so far: THE APPRENTICE --a title that ironically references the TV show hosted by ex-president Donald Trump. [...]
You're in luck-- URINETOWN: THE MUSICAL the season opener at LYRIC STAGE BOSTON is a Boston Theater Critics Association CRITIC's PICK which means-- you just have to go! That stinky title announces the cesspool of corruption in a city where folks have been forced to pay to pee! It seems that a 20-year drought [...]
THE HUNTINGTON just opened its season with what may be the dazzling Tom Stoppard's last play "LEOPOLDSTADT." I saw it on Broadway where it won the TONY Award for Best Play, and thought it not substantial enough to bear the weight of the playwright's experience at its core. The Huntington's production directed by Carey Perloff [...]
A long drive up to Gloucester Stage Company on a sunny Sunday was capped off by a smart, sweet piece of theater: THE HOMBRES by Tony Meneses, a co-presentation by Gloucester Stage and Teatro Chelsea. The play which closes out Gloucester's 45th season is a regional premiere as part of National Hispanic Heritage month. While not [...]
The fall theater season is back up and running! I had high hopes for American Repertory Theater's season opener Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"! Alas, this most tragic and romantic tale of young lovers caught in the crossfire of their feuding families left me wanting-- but not for lack of trying. The set was beautiful and [...]
THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES is a rarity -- a multidimensional musical that speaks to this moment with all of the nuances of a real life lived, and at the heart of it a thrilling, complex, masterful performance by Kristin Chenoweth. That this world premiere musical is also now debuting in our own backyard at Boston's [...]
THE WINTER'S TALE is the ironic summer offering of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's FREE Shakespeare on Boston common. It has certainly been a season of surprises all around, and this play for me is one of them. I had never seen nor read it, had no idea where it was going or how it would get [...]
It is always magical. Since 1937, Tanglewood has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra when the Berkshires are alive with the sound of music! Picture 500 acres of rolling green ringed with the most beautiful hemlock hedgerows I've ever seen! Tanglewood is not only the site of a world-renowned summer music festival, [...]
THELMA is one of the most enjoyable movies of the summer with much to say about how the elderly and young adults are infantilized in this coddling culture. The plot involves one Thelma Post, a 93 year-old grandmother living on her own in L.A. when she is conned out of $10,000 by a phone scammer [...]
