November 7, 2009

"Landscape of the Body" a comic tale to die for

Eveyone loves a good ghost story--especially when it's funny, as is Landscape of the Body, a 1977 stunner being revived by the new Prufrock Theatre tonight through November 21 at the Minneapolis Theatre Garage. It was written by John Guare, the playwright who coined an enduring cultural reference with his incisive Six Degrees of Separation.

The play is an ocassionally surreal headspinner following the heartbreaking longings of such characters as a ghost who wishes for the sensual pleasures of life, her sister who may be a murderer, and others in a large and eager cast. Leah Cooper, the erstwhile head of the Minnesota Fringe Festival,... Read more »

Posted on Saturday, November 7, 2009 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 1, 2009

Review: "Ruined" Brings African Atrocities Home

When the Pulitzer Prize committee chose "Ruined," now playing at the Mixed Blood Theatre, for the drama award this year, it bypassed one of its own suggested stipulations to do so—that the play shed light on the American experience—presumably because it felt the play was too important (and too good) not to acknowledge. Of course, when a play is deemed "important," it does not necessarily mean it's engaging, much less entertaining—in fact, the opposite is often the case. With "Ruined," however, playwright Lynn Nottage has managed all of the above. The play is at once enlightening, galvanizing, and uplifting. 

The setting is the... Read more »

Posted on Sunday, November 1, 2009 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 30, 2009

"Faith Healer" Reviewed, Plus Weekend Picks!

The man who shambles onto the Guthrie Theater stage in a rumpled trenchcoat and fedora, like a shorter, sloppier Robert Mitchum, resembles Joe Dowling only around the edges—the accent, partly; the seductive wash of language; the resolute bearing, however unhinged. In acting for the first time on his own stage, Dowling, the Guthrie's artistic director, successfully becomes a stranger in his own home.

Curiousity about Dowling's performance may be selling seats for Faith Healer, staged now through December 6, but the story itself quickly becomes the main attraction. Told in... Read more »

Posted on Friday, October 30, 2009 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 22, 2009

Best Play in the Nation at Mixed Blood Theatre

It's not easy for an off-Broadway theater to pick up a Pulitzer Prize-winning play in the same year it was honored, much less a midsize theater in Minnesota. But that's the coup that Mixed Blood pulled off, aided by a little negotiating with larger players, and as a result we're now being treated to Ruined, at the West Bank theater now through November 22.

The drama centers around a businesswoman in Africa, though not just any businessman—a brothel owner, a madame, in the war-torn Congo. An opportunist who nonetheless finds her jungle outpost becoming an oasis for women fleeing the terror of rape and other abuses. The play was written by Lynn Nottage,... Read more »

Posted on Thursday, October 22, 2009 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 15, 2009

"Radio Golf" Brings History to the Fore at Penumbra

Penumbra Theatre, in St. Paul, has for the past couple of years wended its way out of sequence through August Wilson's monumental 20th Century Cycle of 10 plays about African-American life (one for each decade of the last century), alighting first in the 1930s and now in the 1990s with "Radio Golf." In this final play, Civil Rights have been won (at least on paper), some blacks have power (though it may be contingent on white support), and at last it appears that the past can be forgotten and all the privileges of the present be taken—but at what cost?

The play gets off to a wobbly, almost pedestrian start as the... Read more »

Posted on Thursday, October 15, 2009 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 9, 2009

Is "A Serious Man" Better Than "Fargo"?

The new Esquire has come out (yeah, it's the one with the mostly nude Kate Beckinsdale on it, asserting she's the Sexiest Woman Alive) raving about "A Serious Man," the Coen brothers movie that opens in wide release this weekend. The magazine suggests that the movie, filmed in St. Louis Park and Minneapolis (about four blocks from my home), among other locations, is the Coen brothers' wisest since "The Big Lebowski."

Great movie, "The Big Lebowski." Cult classic even. (Yesterday, I passed a car with the bumper sticker, "Not on the carpet, man," a memorable line from the film.) But... Read more »

Posted on Friday, October 9, 2009 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 7, 2009

There's Something About "Mary's Wedding" at the Jungle

If the Jungle Theater has specialized in anything it's the telling of emotional stories just this side—the good side—of sentimental. And with founder Bain Boehlke on sabbatical, we're getting a glimpse into the likely future through the design and direction of his heir apparent, Joel Sass, the deft visual artist behind some of the Jungle's most engaging shows.

Sass has given "Mary's Wedding," playing now through October 25, the full sensual treatment—it's a literate romance novel come to life, in a good way, what "The English Patient" attempted onscreen and imagined here in 3-D. Set around World War I, the young Charlie and Mary fervently approach... Read more »

Posted on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 1, 2009

"nobody" Puts MN Film Back on the Map Tonight

This is a big week for Minnesota film, with two major movies filmed here in the past year premiering: "A Serious Man" by the Coen brothers, and "nobody," a film written and directed by Hollywood screenwriter Rob Perez. Lately, given Governor Tim Pawlenty's apparent lack of interest in using greater incentives to draw film crews to the state, anyone who films a major motion picture in Minnesota has either sentimental or other extenuating... Read more »

Posted on Thursday, October 1, 2009 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 28, 2009

Hartnett Pal Premieres Minnesota-Made Movie

It's a good thing for Minnesota that Josh Hartnett is rarely home at his Lake of the Isles mansion. Hartnett and Rob Perez, a Hollywood scriptwriter, hit it off several years ago when they worked on the romantic comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights, which Perez wrote. Hartnett showed Perez the Twin Cities he loves—one filled with actors and set designers and producers and film crews. And when Perez mentioned his desire to hole up somewhere and write and direct a movie of his own, Hartnett offered the house.

A year later, opening... Read more »

Posted on Monday, September 28, 2009 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 25, 2009

Hot to Trot: Sex and Dancing at the Opera

Before there were soap operas there were, well, operas. And among the best of these sexy spectacles, for real sensuousness rather than silliness, is The Pearl Fishers, by Bizet (of Carmen fame). Gone are the days when the sweet come-hithers of opera were voiced by mammoth singers who stood at the edge of the stage and belted; in recent years, opera has caught up to the rest of the entertainment world by putting its prettiest faces forward—and moving them around more. For its production, opening tomorrow at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, the Minnesota Opera has enlisted a couple of the hottest stars of the musical stage—Jesus Garcia, who won a Tony Award for his role in... Read more »

Posted on Friday, September 25, 2009 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)