What does it mean, this big, bold painting hanging right in the middle of Art?

You can try to read between the lines for some hidden message, but you’ll draw a blank. The painting has no lines to read between. No color, form, pattern, or texture either, for that matter, save for some tiny diagonal flecks that may — perhaps — appear when viewed from a certain angle. From top to bottom, it’s white. Nothing more. One wonders if the canvas has been painted at all. And it just cost Serge, an aspiring art-collector, 200,000 hard-earned francs. [Read more...]

Signature Theatre and The Shen Family Foundation have made a commitment to develop new works representing the American Musical Theatre through its groundbreaking American Musical Voice Project (AMVP), and for this they should be applauded.  The ambitious scope of this partnership, the largest commission program for new works in the country, has enabled them to deliver the flawed but capacious and memorable Giant by John La Chiusa and Ricky Ian Gordon’s Sycamore Tree. This, their third work in the series, has, like the others, helped its artistic creators realize a fully orchestrated and staged production.  Mounting new works is always a noble experiment, and like all authentic experiments, not all will succeed.  Signature tried in many ways to get it right, but, sadly, And the Curtain Rises failed in several ways this first test. [Read more...]

Sunset Boulevard is not the best musical that Andrew Lloyd Webber ever composed. While its primary storyline—the decline and fall of an aging silent film diva–is oddly compelling, its score gets repetitious and its lyrics often fail to scan with the music.

That having been said, Signature Theatre’s new production of this show is slick, compelling, and surprisingly moving. It’s so good that, in spite of its lack of truly memorable tunes, it might just give the touring production of the Lincoln Center’s South Pacific revival—currently playing across the river at the Kennedy Center—a run for its money. [Read more...]

Politics is like the weather: the only thing predictable about it is its unpredictability. It changes – and changes back, and changes again – with a speed that keeps us from ever getting too comfortable. On TV, especially, we track politics like we track the weather: streams and currents of hot and cold temperament swirling across the map of America. Who will be red today, and who will be blue? [Read more...]

“Caddyshack” is a great, big, loveable dumb movie, but fans would be hard-pressed to call it one of the more astute studies ever assembled on the art of golf. After witnessing the angry and belligerent mess made by A Fox on the Fairway, however, that movie seems positively penetrating. Ken Ludwig’s new comedy – ostensibly called a farce – is sharp in its own way, but more in the manner of a whittled stick that a five-year-old relative uses to incessantly poke you until you react. One can only assume the expected response is laughter, but more likely you’ll start bruising first. [Read more...]