It's been a long time coming, but Spring has sprung with a bang! Obama got Osama! Looks like the President finished what the cowboy couldn't, and he did so with extraordinary care, precision, no American losses, no civilian casualties, photographic and DNA confirmation of the terrorist's identity, and burial at sea within 24 hours in [...]
Let's begin with the royal idiot, shall we? That could only be Donald Trump who has trumped even Charlie Sheen in playing The Court Jester: Trump is now officially the village idiot. When I first heard he might actually be contemplating a run at the White House, I admit I thought (as one who is [...]
I've always hated circuses. Wouldn't cover them on TV for 25 years. It's not just the confined and lonely animals, it's whatever darkness and sadness is under all that makeup... BUT I really enjoyed WATER FOR ELEPHANTS--maybe because it didn't hide the darkness, and somehow still captured the magic that circuses promise: exotic beauty and [...]
SONS OF THE PROPHET is set in Lebanon, Egypt, Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Jordan--not too far from the Poconos. That's right--it's Pennsylvania!-- where the playwright grew up, and the mess of characters and circumstances here seem no less tangled and painful than the conundrum in the middle east. Oh, and it's a comedy. Sort of. This [...]
OK THEATER BUFFS-- This is it! The Elliot Norton Awards (yes, that's Mr. Norton reading his Boston Herald with me on the back page!!!) Boston's version of the TONYS--has just entered the 21st century and launched its WEBSITE!!!https://www.nortonawardsboston.com AND we have just announced our NOMINEES for the 29th Annual ELLIOT NORTON AWARDS to be held [...]
I heard the news today, oh boy. Snooki is headed for Rutgers and will regurgitate whatever comes into her head to the tune of $32,000. It's the students idea, and their reason is-to quote the president of the student group who hired the Snookster- "to show that students here aren't dying from just reading books [...]
I just saw THE MERCHANT OF VENICE starring F.Murray Abraham and it was remarkable for one reason. It's not that this is a gleaming "Theatre for a New Audience" production directed by Darko Tresnjak with a cast decked out in dark suits and cocktail dresses, clutching their cell phones while syncopating Shakespeare's iambic pentameter. The [...]
9 CIRCLES is having its East Coast premiere at PUBLICK THEATRE. It's not "shocking" or "bitingly funny." What it is, is timely and smart-- about what can happen to raw recruits when you train them to follow orders, kill, and pitch them into battle. The play by Bill Cain refers to nine circles of hell [...]
I can't believe how bad I feel. The beautiful Elizabeth Taylor has died. My heart is aching and I feel such a loss. She was always for me a sign post on the horizon, the most perfectly beautiful woman I ever saw. My friends and I--Catholic high school girls in our blue serge uniforms--would argue [...]
I remember the 1983 film vividly, with its Oscar-nominated performance by Julie Walters opposite the charismatic Michael Caine. Willy Russell's play now onstage at the Huntington is more concentrated and even more enjoyable: witness two terrific actors squaring off in neatly calibrated performances and dramatically escalating scenes, pitting a lower class hairdresser's insouciance and eagerness [...]
