Shaw Festival’s 2004 season got off to an early and rollicking start with three effervescent comedies. Two more plays conclude the opening “week” at the end of May. Seven more productions will follow and play into December. These first three set the bar high. First, Artistic Director Jackie Maxwell directs G. B. Shaw’s classic […]
Arts & Entertainment
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A promise of post-partum diversity
Group shows are rarely just about the artwork. They’re mostly about some overarching idea that the work helps to illustrate. Of course, the work itself plays a role as viewers decide what they like or what they don’t like. There is also the matter of how objects work together as a cohesive whole. Is […]
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City Ballet surviving strong
Forget those disgusting “reality” shows: our impressive Survivor, Rochester City Ballet, completed its spring season continuing to dance splendidly. Artistic Director Jamey Leverett choreographed two new works: Gershwin in the Park and Pedestal: For Tim, both danced beautifully. Pedestal, a tribute to RCB founder Tim Draper, proved that Leverett has maintained Draper’s high standards. In […]
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Olympics don’t belong in universe
The 2004 Summer Olympic Games open August 13 in Athens, Greece, and frankly, who cares? The Olympics are so pre-21st-century, they’re like record players. Among the things keeping this archaic athletic competition alive are the fortunes spent on corporate sponsorship, TV broadcast rights, and International Olympic Committee members, whose penchant for personal financial gain […]
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Beating the bush
It looks hopeless. The Sherbrooke Canadiens trounce the visiting Amerks 6-1 in game five of the 1987 Calder Cup Finals, and lead the best-of-seven series 3-2. The Canadiens are in the zone, the Amerks in the toilet. They lost consecutive games — one at the War Memorial — by a 13-4 margin. It’s time to […]
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Image, memory, and identity for sale
In the 15th century, you might have encountered an image once a day, once a year, once in lifetime, or not at all. Today, we are practically swimming in images. They’re all around us. And because of this proliferation we take them as a given, natural occurrence. For our culture, an image or picture […]
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Wanna buy some aspects?
Once again a brave theater group is giving a surprisingly effective revival to a difficult cult musical which its admirers insist was never properly appreciated. And once again I’ve belatedly been introduced to a well-known old show and impressed by the performance. But again I’ve had to admit that I think the thing deserved to […]
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‘Baseball guys are weird’
Red Wing Jason Bartlett is playing his first AAA season in the International League and his fourth season in the minor leagues. San Diego drafted the Lodi, California, native from University of Oklahoma in June 2001 and traded him to Minnesota in July 2002. “Publication Baseball America” named the 24-year-old shortstop Minnesota’s sixth-best prospect in […]
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Two play to a T
Center Stage at Jewish Community Center has mounted a first-class revival of Israel Horovitz’s popular, appealing play, Park Your Car In Harvard Yard. An elegantly composed interplay for two actors, it is both heartwarming and funny. Horovitz is one of our most prolific playwrights, a fact that dissuades me from trying to sound like […]
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Profiting from patriotism
War, terrorism, and catastrophic events are good for the US sports business. The industry willingly serves as the diversion to destruction and willingly supports any military campaign. But criticizing those marketing approaches would be un-American. Consequently, the industry can infallibly promote itself without fear of backlash. There apparently can never be enough patriotism. […]
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‘Blue’ is definitely golden
Geva Theatre Center is presenting an absolutely thrilling production of Charles Randolph-Wright and Nona Hendryx’s Blue, an oddity, but a brilliant one. Randolph-Wright’s script is so loaded with genuine comedy and human emotions that I’m sorry to note that it is also predictable and often trite, like a sitcom. But I don’t care. If it […]
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Third time is not a charm
I was sure that the Shelagh Stephenson was Irish, but she isn’t. She was born in Northumberland, where her play Ancient Lightstakes place. That may be significant, since an Irish novelist in the play turns out to be English, from Hull, a port city that I think is in Northumberland. Indeed, almost all the characters […]
