Articles
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Beckett's "Happy Days' by the Lantern (3rd review)
Humanity's last gasp
A play should offer us more than what we see. The longer the two of us have spent talking about Happy Days— arguing about it, thinking about it— the richer it has become. That's what distinguishes Beckett's work from Lorenzo Pisoni's Humor Abuse.
Articles
6 minute read
"First Day of School' by 1812 Productions
Sex and the married parent
What do parents do when they've packed the kids off to school? They fool around, yes, but Billy Aronson's sophisticated sex farce never loses its grasp on reality, and a first-rate cast of comic actors expertly builds a sense of cumulative ridiculousness.
Articles
4 minute read
"The History Boys' at the Arden (1st review)
Don't know much about history…
Beyond an exceptional acting ensemble, in The History Boys the Arden stages a sharp intellectual prep-school drama that cuts to the core of if, how and why a society should value art, culture, education and learning.
Articles
3 minute read
Di Wu's Philadelphia piano debut recital
Poet at the keyboard (and on her feet)
The young pianist Di Wu knows what she wants to say at the keys and away from them. At her Philadelphia debut recital she spoke to the crowded venue in an easy communicative style, as if we were all old friends.
Articles
3 minute read
Philadelphia Orchestra's season kickoff
Color and power (sans adventure)
The Philadelphia Orchestra kicked off its season with the kind of big, spectacular music that requires a major orchestra with an organ at its disposal.
Articles
2 minute read
Philadelphia Orchestra: Brahms and Bartok
Beethoven's shadow (and Wagner's too)
The Philadelphia Orchestra offered a seasoned warhorse, the Brahms Second Piano Concerto, freshly realized by soloist Yefim Bronfman, and a rare performance of the entire score of Bartok's ballet-pantomime, The Miraculous Mandarin. The specter of Wagner hung over both works, each of which rejected it in its own way.
Articles
6 minute read
SCRAP's "Tide' at Live Arts Festival
A tide of bereft desolation
Myra Bazell and Madison Cario's apocalyptic Tide was danced with such energetic angst that it lost its creators' hopeful message of the potential for healing and a new consciousness.
Articles
2 minute read
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Dorner's "above under inbetween' at Live Arts Festival
Love me, love my table
The Austrian choreographer Willi Dorner brought his explorations of bodies in space indoors, presenting a slyly humorous work that suggested that we relate more closely to the objects in our domestic lives than we think.
Above under inbetween. Compagnie Willi Dorner/ Live Arts festival production September 11-12, 2009 at ICE Box Projects Space, 1400 N. American St. 215.413.9006 or www.livearts-fringe.org/details.cfm?id=8370.
Articles
3 minute read
On buying art in Philadelphia
Who needs Matisse? Home decorating with Philadelphia Magazine
Philadelphia Magazine's annual home issue is chock-full of ideas for decorating your house with art— everything, in fact, except the one thing you need most of all.
Articles
5 minute read
Beckett's "Happy Days' by the Lantern (2nd review)
The limits of human consciousness
The Lantern Theater's season is off to a good start with David O'Connor's production of Beckett's Happy Days, featuring Mary Elizabeth Scallen as Winnie. This inexhaustible role can never be fully realized in any performance, but Scallen projects her battered dignity and, in the play's second act, creates a memorable picture of human consciousness at the end of its tether.
Articles
6 minute read