All hail Ma Rainey. The real-life Mother of the Blues gets star power treatment of such high wattage it can scarcely be measured. Peerless acting, a tight ensemble, cinematography burnished to a warm, heraldic bronze, class-act direction, music that heals the hunger inside and costumes that fit the characters like kidskin gloves all work together […]
Review: What the Constitution Means to Me, streaming on Amazon Prime “exuberant, angry, proud and patriotic”
You know things are dire during Corona Times when you find yourself sobbing over a piece of parchment—aka The Constitution of the United States. What’s next? Rending my garments over the Bill of Rights? That’s the effect Heidi Schreck’s exuberant, angry, proud and patriotic play, What the Constitution Means to Me, has on a person. […]
DC citizens speak through Arena Stage’s new film The 51st State
Statehood for the District of Columbia has always been a fraught enterprise. It wasn’t until 1961 that Washington residents could vote for President; and before 1973, Congress appointed DC government’s overseers. The District now has its own Mayor and Council, a non-voting representative in Congress and a “Shadow Senator”, and the right to send electors […]
Review of Cats movie. When it comes to magic, starry cast can’t compete with ballerina Francesca Hayward
A brilliant musical can only be cheapened by a surfeit of screen effects and novelty casting. But Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats is a mediocre musical, brilliantly packaged, and it benefits nicely from those cinematic bonuses. A diverting if bizarre family entertainment, it should have a respectable Christmas opening with a, um, long tail. Early trailers […]
All Is True movie review: Defending Kenneth Branagh’s right to invent Shakespeare’s last years
We know very little about William Shakespeare, so we make stuff up. Thus we have Shakespeare in Love (John Madden–Tom Stoppard), which imagines the Bard falling for an aristocrat’s wife who wants to break the gender barrier by appearing as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. And we have Lauren Gunderson’s The Book of Will, which […]
In the Movies: Aladdin, Lion King, Cats plus two nods to the Bard
Anyone watching television this week has probably viewed the onslaught of commercials for the Memorial Day weekend opening of Aladdin. It is the first of three major releases based on Broadway musicals that will hit the screens in 2019. DISNEY’s ALADDIN Release date: May 24, 2019. Story summary: A poor young lad finds a lamp […]
How actor Jeff Wincott manages his busy TV and film career from DC
Editor’s note: Carrie Coon was an unknown Chicago actor before landing the role of Honey, the “pliant and sweetly sozzled soul” in Steppenwolf’s Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (seen here in 2011). Coon now manages a busy screen career from Chicago. According to last month’s New Yorker profile, she is on the same career path as […]
From stage to screen: fall recommendations
Thanks to the Washington Post’s This is Your Brain on Art we understand what you and I have known all along – that nothing quite compares to live performaning. But great theatre can still be enjoyable on the big screen and on your own small screens. Below are some upcoming broadcasts by National Theatre Live and […]
Review: Tom Teasely underscoring The Cabinet of Dr Caligari closes this weekend
Looking for something a little… weird? Have I got a show for you. A Zombie. A Mad Doctor. A Carnival. An Insane Asylum. Live Music. Yes, a garden of delights awaits you, courtesy of Constellation Theatre. Start with the 1920 German Expressionist silent film masterpiece Das Kabinet des Dr Caligari, and add the offbeat music […]
Human actors get trapped in the Disney techno-spell cast over Beauty and the Beast (review)
The idea seemed promising: take a classic, well-loved, mega-popular animated Disney film and remake it as a live-action movie; hire an accomplished, imaginative director; cast it with good actors. You would be guaranteed to end up with something different, fresher, more illuminating than the existing cartoon version, something potentially more powerful. One might even hope […]
Film Review: Denzel Washington brings Wilson’s powerful Fences to the screen
A great film version of a great play is a rare thing. More often than not, the alchemy that results in success on stage resists translation to the screen, and film history is replete with examples of movie stars who scoop up plum stage roles and end up making forgettable flicks. Denzel Washington’s film of […]
Fritz Lang’s silent movie Metropolis gets new Tom Teasley percussive score (review)
In Constellation Theatre Company’s screeningof Metropolis, Tom Teasley’s live music breathes new life into the 89-year-old classic. Every production in Constellation’s 10th season will feature live music, but this production takes that idea and runs with it. A Constellation collaborator since The Arabian Nights in their first season, Tom Teasley provides a live and partially […]
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