Articles

6207 results
Page 464
Entertaining? Very. Racist? Hardly. (Photo: Sara Krulwich, New York Times.)

"The Scottsboro Boys' on Broadway (1st review)

Two cheers for the minstrel show

Those Broadway pickets who object to the minstrel format of The Scottsboro Boys miss the point. This musical tells a disturbing story of racism through a device that's racially charged, and also very entertaining.
Steve Cohen

Steve Cohen

Articles 5 minute read
'Start of Spring': A new approach to landscapes.

Lesa C. Lim at F.A.N. Gallery

A subtle fragrance

Lesa Chittenden Lim deals in a sort of visual perfume. It's a very subtle fragrance— a harmony of colors, the lightning strike of a line across the paper's surface.

Andrew Mangravite

Articles 1 minute read
'Venus of the Rags' (1967-74): Anything goes.

Pistoletto: '60s survivor at the Art Museum (2nd review)

The artist as social visionary

Can art change the world? Michelangelo Pistoletto— equal parts artist and activist— is determined to keep trying, even at age 77.

Anne R. Fabbri

Articles 4 minute read
Lynch, Sanford: A world that's changing, for the worse. (Photo: Mark Garvin.)

Lantern Theater's "Uncle Vanya' (2nd review)

The landed gentry, awaiting extinction

Chekhov's Uncle Vanya is, like his other works on turn-of-the-20th-Century Russia, a comedy that breaks the heart. It's well served in the Lantern Theater's current production.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 8 minute read
Wu Man and her pipa: Something in common with banjo pluckers.

Orchestra 2001: From China to Scotland

Chinese visions, highland memories

Orchestra 2001 presented a globetrotting program that bridged the divide between entertainment and art while it linked the Eastern and Western musical traditions.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Articles 4 minute read
Instant serpents and moving umbrellas, beneath a Japanese moon.

"Kaidan Insuto' by Daniele Strawmyre's readySetGo

Japanese ghosts in Kensington

In a suitably ghostly abandoned warehouse in Kensington, Daniele Strawmyre and her readySetGo dance company presented Kaidan Insuto, an engrossing performance installation work based on ghost tales from 17th-Century Japan.
Jonathan M. Stein

Jonathan M. Stein

Articles 3 minute read
'Spring' (1573): Is that hair, skin and clothing, or something else?

Arcimboldo, 16th-Century Surrealist, in Washington

Surreal before his time

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was one of the most imaginative artists of all time. His weirdly striking “portraits” of fruits, flowers, fish and other creatures tell stories of the discovery of the natural world in the 16th Century.

Articles 3 minute read
Partridge as Violetta: The scenario rings false.

Bourgeois morality tales: "Traviata' vs. 'Lulu' (3rd review)

When the opera makes no sense, try reading the book

Verdi's La Traviata and Berg's Lulu seem worlds apart sonically and dramatically, but they share a vision of the bourgeois world in which an untrammeled female temptress is sacrificed, in one case on the altar of respectability and on the other to Jack the Ripper's knife. Now, where is the composer who'll do justice to the Age of Madoff?
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 8 minute read

Sign up for our newsletter

All of the week's new articles, all in one place. Sign up for the free weekly BSR newsletters, and don't miss a conversation.

Shepherd (right) with Gary Wilmes: A whole chapter by heart.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Gatz' in New York

The power of many, many, many words

The entire Great Gatsby, read word for word on stage aloud, in the course of seven hours plus a dinner break? Yes— and it's one of the most valiant coups de théâtre I've ever seen: a stunning theatrical feat of virtuosity and sheer audacity.

Carol Rocamora

Articles 5 minute read
Gans: Quest for a 'realistic utopia.'

Herbert Gans imagines America in 2033

An academic envisions a future he won't see

As its title suggests, my old colleague Herbert Gans's latest book is a hopeful and engaging imagined “history” of the first third of the 21st Century. It begins like a novel and ends as a series of clearly stated position papers on the issues that made George W. Bush's presidency such a tragic American aberration.
Patrick D. Hazard

Patrick D. Hazard

Articles 5 minute read