One of the great moments in Margaret, Kenneth Lonergan’s long-awaited and under-publicized two-and-a-half-hour film, is when high school student and protagonist Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) approaches Mr. Aaron (Matt Damon), a well-meaning math teacher she had sex with, as he walks with a female colleague. Abruptly, Lisa tells the two teachers that she had an [...]
Category Archives: Reviews
Dublin by Lamplight
September 19, 2011 – 3:32 pm
Michael West’s Dublin by Lamplight, now playing at 59E59 as part of the 1st Irish Theatre Festival, is a vaudevillian portrayal of Dublin circa 1904. And if 1st Irish is indeed a “celebration of the best of Irish theatre,” as its mission statement declares, then West’s show should get top billing. It’s the perfect fit. [...]
Lust Really, Not Love
June 25, 2011 – 8:02 pm
Upon entering the Robert Moss Theater for a viewing of The Movement Workshop Group’s (MWG) presentation of Wanderlust, I had a flashback. It was the damndest thing. I was instantly transported to middle school, my mind compiling a montage of after-school special videos. “Why were the people on stage forming a semi-circle?” I pondered. “And [...]
The Promise
April 4, 2011 – 9:04 pm
Tartan Week is upon us and you know what that means: seven days of Scottish culture and history—bagpipes, Robert Burns readings, and a sudden surplus of Bellhaven ale at your local watering hole. At the culminating event—the parade on Saturday—thousands of Scottish-Americans will be clad in plaid as a sort of ode to the Old [...]
Renee Gladman
December 22, 2010 – 4:28 pm
Event Factory, by Renee Gladman, is a devious little science fiction book about a woman who visits a fictional city called “Ravicka”—which may also be a planet—where only commonplace banalities occur and everyone is uncomfortable and mystified. It’s a reticent gem of poise and subtle humor, and, at only 126 pages, it punches—or, more accurately, [...]
Edna O’Brien’s Haunted
December 21, 2010 – 7:08 am
Stephen Dedalus, James Joyce’s fictional doppelganger, once quipped: “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” Now, it’s a wonder how many essays, stories and reviews (just like this one) have drawn upon that line—a line from a cryptic Irish novel, that on every day besides June 16th can only be found [...]
Jazz Choreography Enterprises
November 23, 2010 – 7:31 pm
There was a time, quite recently, when my knowledge of jazz dance was limited to the works of Bob Fosse. And by “the works of Bob Fosse,” I mean Chicago—the film version—and I only watched that one because I was intrigued by the idea of John C. Reilly starring in an Oscar-winning musical. So imagine [...]
