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Thérèse Raquin
The whites, greys and blacks of the Roundabout’s THÉRÈSE RAQUIN are so muted that, when a brown-hued backdrop appears, it is like a flash of color, and so, later on, is a sparse scattering of autumn leaves, dropped and faded. The interiors, when they appear, are dim and woody, the windows opening, at best, on…
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Romeo and Juliet
Tea Alagić’s production of ROMEO AND JULIET at Classic Stage Company is in the tradition of Peter Brook’s “empty space.” I can almost imagine that seminal figure of the modern theater as having directed it. The script is pared to its essence, to just the point at which trimming a little more would do injury…
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Liberal Arts
Josh Radnor – who acts in, directs and writes LIBERAL ARTS – plays an admissions officer in an unnamed urban university in New York City who revisits his alma mater, a liberals arts college in Ohio, also nameless, to deliver a tribute at the retirement dinner for a favorite professor. Before he leaves, we see…
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Peace, Love & Misunderstanding
I enjoyed the Hudson Valley and Catskills settings of PEACE, LOVE & MISUNDERSTANDING, where I used to spend a lot of time, and which have a picturesque charm. They also seem a little frozen in time, even as they have become more crowded, with the ’60s living on in the iconography of Woodstock and a…
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Silent House
The advance notices have been a bit unfair to Chris Kentis and Laura Lau‘s SILENT HOUSE. They have made it impossible to experience the film’s aesthetic structure – it was ostensibly shot in real time and in a single take – as one might have without having had prior knowledge of the device. Rather than…