A toast to the season with a pair of Christmas Carols now onstage! The meaning of Christmas is nowhere more movingly expressed than in Charles Dickens' timeless fable about a man hardened to life but given a second chance to look back and open his heart to the love around him. Steven Maler's Commonwealth Shakespeare [...]
This is the 29th summer of Commonwealth Shakespeare's Company's FREE production of Shakespeare on Boston Common and it is, indeed, AS YOU LIKE IT. I like it too! Directed by CSC's Artistic Director Steven Maler, this is an exuberant, out of the box, big as all outdoors production of one of my favorite Shakespeare comedies. [...]
A new holiday treat has arrived on the Boston scene -- an enduring story which never fails to move me. It cuts right through the Christmas chaos, and gets to the heart of the season: CHARLES DICKENS' A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's inaugural production of this touching tale, is an instant classic! Company artistic [...]
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 [...]
Now onstage, in the middle of Boston Common, is that summer crowd pleaser MACBETH!! Commonwealth Shakespeare Company has turned to the dark side this year for its annual production of FREE Shakespeare on the Common. I'd had my doubts about wanting to see this bloody tale of murder, suicide, guilt, betrayal, unbridled ambition, political and [...]
It's our annual Boston theatrical ritual-- FREE Shakespeare on the Common presented by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, and this summer's production is just what we needed after a year of too much of everything and always something-- so what better time for "Much Ado About Nothing"! Just sit back under the stars with a scoop of [...]
What could be more fitting for this summer's FREE annual Commonwealth Shakespeare production on the common, than THE TEMPEST? In a season of storms: climatic, pandemic, and politic, and their cross currents: moral ambiguity, familial friction, and racial strife, the brilliant John Douglas Thompson and company deliver a masterpiece of rough magic and earthy wisdom [...]
This weekend is a mixed bag and involves Mick Jagger and William Shakespeare. If only they had worked together. I couldn't wait to see the THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY a Sony Classics release beginning August 7 at West Newton Theater. For this movie critic/arts reporter, what could be better than an art heist film starring [...]
Imogen-- where have you been all my life?! I have only seen Shakespeare's CYMBELINE once before (March '92 at the Huntington Theatre) but I don't recall its heroine as vividly as I will remember this boisterous and boundlessly energized performance by Nora Eschenheimer as Princess Imogen, a young woman as honest, loyal, and determined as the [...]
This is the worst time of year for new movies, but theater is alive and kicking on stages around Boston. ONCE is worth seeing again and again, but BIRDY never takes flight. Mackenzie Lesser-Roy & Nile Scott HawverPhoto: Maggie Hall Photography As soon as I knew ONCE was in town, that signature melody [...]
