Seeing "SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical" at the Colonial Theatre this week made me long for six more weeks of WINTER. The show which attempts to tell the story of Boston's own LaDonna Adrian Gaines who became the Queen of Disco, is a fiasco from beginning to end. In addition to limp direction and limper choreography, [...]
If anyone doubted that Chekhov could be funny and tragic at the same time, keep your eyes on Marianna Bassham in the opening scene-within-a-scene of "The Seagull" and the actress's hilarious, out of her mind, dazed and confused, wounded deer-in-the-headlights mashup of her character Nina's dialogue before knocking over sets and collapsing on the floor. [...]
I roused myself at the crack of 8AM this morning, and waded through the annoying byplay of hosts Tracee Ellis Ross (Black-ish) and Leslie Jordan (Will & Grace) to hear the announcement of the 94th OSCAR nominations and was happy to see so many of this year's best films and performances recognized by the Academy. [...]
The title alone--THE BLUEST EYE--suggests the shards of an iris, a lens on a deep dark sea of meaning. Now, the depth and richness of the Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison's language and vision is profoundly illuminated by Lydia R. Diamond's sleek 2005 adaptation of Morrison's first novel and The Huntington's graceful and penetrating production-- [...]
I recently went to the theater, vaxxed and masked, and saw two productions which couldn't have been more diametrically opposed. One was an honest, affecting, reality-based memoir that shed light on one of the most crucial and challenging issues of our times. The other was a repackaged bundle of cliched claptrap, an embarrassment in motion. [...]
There are stories that remain forever at the heart of the human experience and WITNESS, the latest virtual theater piece by Arlekin Players Theatre and Zero Gravity Virtual Theater Lab, is one of them. This world premiere and startlingly innovative work is based on an historical saga which began in 1939 when more than 900 [...]
There's holiday entertainment still to be had ONLINE this holiday week and here are two that encompass the dynamics and traditions of the season-- which this year feels more fraught than most. Take comfort and joy in the following offerings which dust off the past, dive into the complexities of the present, and emerge with [...]
MUST SEES: Two plays now onstage in Boston: one a gloss on a Shakespearean historical tragedy, the other a clarion call to avert an historical tragedy! Playwright Mike Lew's TEENAGE DICK now onstage at THE HUNTINGTON exploded the pile of preconceptions I was sitting on, confounded my expectations, and expanded my world. THIS [...]
THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS (BSFC) of which I have been a proud member since 1981, has once again voted its year- end awards, and it only took us 7 hours, on zoom, with 27 members participating. Since we began gathering in the livingroom of the late great David Brudnoy all those years ago, [...]
HURRY! FREE ADVANCE SCREENING TO Columbia Pictures/Bron Studios release "A JOURNAL FOR JORDAN"! December 13th, 2021 at 7:00pm at AMC Boston Common For the chance to download tickets to this special advance screening of "A JOURNAL FOR JORDAN" please visit: https://alliedrsvp.com/boston Rating: PG-13 (Language, Drug Use, Partial Nudity, Some Sexual Content) Running time: 2h [...]
