|
Pulse of the Twin Cities Login |
|
If you do not have an account yet
Create One.
|
|
|
Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
|
|
|
|
The Lost Boys of Sudan: Three refugees
Wednesday 04 April @ 13:40:12 (Read: 4158) |
  by DWIGHT HOBBES
There is nothing like the theater of the absurd when it's well written, and nobody writes it well-er than Lonnie Carter. Not that he's by himself: He's in the esteemed company of Arthur Sainer ("Day Old Bread or The Worst Good Time I Ever Had") of Theatre for the New Cities renown and Silas Jones, whose "Canned Goods," starring film and television veteran Soon Tek Oh, was a hit at Penumbra under the direction of Claude Purdy. Carter is, however at the head of the pack, having copped an Obie for "The Romance of Magno Rubio" at Ma-Yi Theatre Company and now premiering a gem, "The Lost Boys of Sudan," at Children's Theatre Company.
| Read More... | Add Comments |
|
 |
|
Two Onstage
Wednesday 14 March @ 15:13:04 (Read: 1686) |
BY ED FELIEN
The Pajama Game
Sabathani Theater
"The Pajama Game" is not just a play, it's a celebration of all things Latino, of musical theater, of the profound and progressive impact Latin workers have had in the United States. Director Mark Valdez has taken a 50-year-old musical comedy and breathed so much life into it that it reads like today's headlines.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
WEB EXCLUSIVE: The Exonerated: Suspenseful indictment of the death penalty
Wednesday 07 March @ 15:46:58 (Read: 1899) |
 by LYDIA HOWELL
Imagine murder investigations twisted into weapons against the innocent by bureaucratic corruption. The horror intensifies as the plots twist with rising tension. Now multiply by six. Almost punch drunk, I staggered out of Frank Theatre's "The Exonerated," an emotional knockout of a play that tells the true stories of six innocent people who each spent between two and 22 years on death row before being vindicated and released.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Teatro del Pueblo: Political Theatre Festival takes on immigration
Wednesday 21 February @ 17:05:17 (Read: 1723) |
 by LYDIA HOWELL
Humor might not come to mind when thinking about political theater, but Teatro del Pueblo's sixth annual Political Theatre Festival is fueled by laughter.
"The festival is a place where we bring theater and politics together to create a broader conversation, where the community can discuss politics in a safer environment," says Alberto Justiniano, Teatro del Pueblo's artistic director. "Regardless where you are in the political spectrum, you have a voice."
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Ballet of the Dolls: Nutcracker?! (not so) Suite
Wednesday 20 December @ 18:38:10 (Read: 1840) |
 by CHRISTOPHER KOZA
’Tis the holiday season, when people find themselves under siege by department store sales, hazardous office parties and well-extended families. But the Ballet of the Dolls’ “Nutcracker?! (not so) Suite” is one holiday tradition, returning after a three-year hiatus, that locals will welcome. It’s an adventure that follows the thrills and perils of a young girl’s big-city, phantasmagorical ascent to the advent of adolescence through the choreography and direction of Dolls’ founder, Myron Johnson.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Wellstone! a fine tribute to Paul & Sheila
Thursday 12 October @ 11:49:26 (Read: 2171) |
by POLLY MANN
 As I watched actor Kris L. Nelson on the stage of the Great American History Theatre—smiling—orating loudly —gesticulating wildly—he became Paul Wellstone, reminding me of my friendship, admiration for and occasional exasperation with this senator from Minnesota. And I had wondered if Mark Rosenwinkel’s play highlighting well-known events of Wellstone’s life would be able to hold the interest of an audience already “in the know.” It did and it became Paul’s audience as Kris Nelson exhorted them to indignation and action: They clapped at appropriate moments and were respectfully silent at others.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Fringe festival: Feasting on the Fringe
Sunday 13 August @ 22:52:26 (Read: 3856) |
by LYDIA HOWELL
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE FRINGE FESTIVAL
Four days at the Fringe Festival saw both the most impressive peaks of talent, and performers who should be charged with felony-level crimes against art. I laughed to the point of breathlessness and was moved to tears. If you’ve never gone to a play or dance performance, you owe yourself a trip to the Fringe—plus, there’s enough comedy to pack the ER with cracked ribs.
 TOP PICKS
“American Drama: Pocket Edition”
American theater classics (“Streetcar Named Desire,” “The Crucible,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”) plus musicals (“West Side Story” and “Guys and Dolls”) compressed into one hilarious hour. Familiarity with these plays is unnecessary, as this well-oiled comedy machine grabs and won’t let go until you’re limp with laughter.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
West Bank story: Run Westies run
Friday 09 June @ 17:24:16 (Read: 2220) |
 by Dwight Hobbes
Bedlam Theatre Company’s new production must be congratulated for, if nothing else, ambition. In a daring move, this bunch of hole-in-the-wall wizards—who’ve been doing state-of-the-art absurdist theater since 1993—have come out of their little corner to show what they can do on the Mixed Blood Theatre boards—about as high a profile venue as you come by this side of the Guthrie. Folk who’ve been following Bedlam have to be elated that the company is getting a day in the sun. Those who are now finding out about it—well, they get to find out about it. The ambitious note is that the show takes on one hell of a concept: illuminating as historically diverse a community as there’s ever been.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: An Eastern twist
Wednesday 17 May @ 15:42:36 (Read: 2174) |
 by Jeremy Breningstall
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is transferred to the Meiji period of Japanese history in a new production now showing at the Southern Theater. Utilizing costumes that reflect noble attire, turn of the century Westernized dress and martial arts outfits, members of Theater Mu, a pan-Asian theater troupe, take on the classic Shakespearean story. The play also makes use of Korean mask dancing, taiko drumming and (in one scene) a nod toward kabuki sword fighting.
Strong performances are put in by Katie Bradley (Hermia) and Mayano Ochi (Helena) as they seek to navigate the changing allegiances of Lysander and Demetrius, both spellbound by Puck.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Farm Boys: Gay love in the rural Midwest
Wednesday 17 May @ 15:37:30 (Read: 2361) |
 by Lydia Howell
For starters, I can’t remember the last play that inspired as much warm laughter in an audience as I experienced during the Great American History Theatre’s premiere of “Farm Boys.” (running through May 28th). The hit of the 2004 Raw Stages series draws from Will Fellows’ book about 37 gay men who came of age in the rural Midwest between the early 1930s and the 1980s. Playwright Dean Gray was one of the 75 gay men Fellows interviewed and, with Amy Fox, the two created a play around five totally engaging composite characters.
“There’s an incredible divide between men who came of age before the 1970s and those who came of age after,” says director John Miller-Stephany, who’s also Associate Artistic Director at the Guthrie. “Earlier in the century, the pressures to conform meant many gay men married—unhappily. They were put in psychiatric care. Some attempted suicide. Later in the 20th century, these men had a sense of the larger world outside their rural communities.”
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Venus: Fall into the arms of “Venus”
Wednesday 29 March @ 17:24:09 (Read: 3047) |
by Dwight Hobbes
When you hear the name Wendy Knox, founding artistic director at Frank Theatre, think firebrand. You can count on one hand, with fingers leftover, Twin Cities venues committed to “the exploration of ideas and issues of social, political and/or cultural concern,” as the website asserts. Knox established the company back in 1989 and it’s still going strong, each season fulfilling “the desire to produce work that provides opportunities for artists to grow, to stretch, to work outside of and beyond the typical opportunities provided by theaters with a greater commercial interest.”
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Do you want to know a secret?: Surveillance Society
Thursday 09 March @ 15:34:20 (Read: 2413) |
by Lydia Howell
Days after seeing “Do You Want To Know A Secret?” more questions unexpectedly emerge, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. I’m still arguing with all the characters—and continually switching “sides.” Twin Cities playwright Daniel Pinkerton and the Fortune’s Fool Theater actors have gotten into my head with this insidiously brilliant look at what living in a “surveillance society” does to people.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Bedlam Theatre: Quality Avant-Garde
Wednesday 15 February @ 11:54:50 (Read: 2639) |
by Dwight Hobbes
You don’t need to be insane to start a theater company but, of course, it does help. In the case of Bedlam Theatre, it not only helps, but has proven to be essential.
For openers, to think avant garde theater—sans PC values or racial or sexual minority status to get in on multi-culti funding—has a snowball’s chance of attracting strong support you have to be nuts. Secondly, avant garde theater—producing absurdist scripts that count not on oddness for the sake of being odd but sound writing instead—calls for a creative mind inherently crazy as an outhouse rat. You have to get weird and make sense at the same time.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Indian Cowboy: Zaraawar Mistry’s Journey
Thursday 26 January @ 13:17:30 (Read: 3971) |
by Dwight Hobbes
If you haven’t followed the career of actor-director-playwright Zaraawar Mistry, this is an opportune time to take note of the seasoned veteran. He’s enjoying a heightened profile and making a significant transition—one that happens to benefit him as well as Twin Cities theater.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Live at the Funky Butt Jazz Club
Wednesday 14 December @ 18:06:49 (Read: 2283) |
by Dana Buchwald
Tired of the usual Holiday Gobbledygook? Check out Interact Theater’s current production, “Live at The Funky Butt Jazz Club,” an ambitious show that aspires to illuminate the genesis of jazz and the milieu it grew out of during the late 1800s and early 1900s in New Orleans. Work on the play began last spring, and it is a poignant fact that the first read-through of the show—dedicated in part to New Orleans and its people—took place on Aug. 29, 2005.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
New playwright Ismail Khalidi represents the undistorted
Thursday 29 September @ 15:40:59 (Read: 4536) |
by Lydia Howell
To witness simultaneously the shattering of censorship and the introduction of an extraordinary new talent defines the experience of great art. Pangea World Theater's production of “Truth Serum Blues,” written and performed by Ismail Khalidi, personifies that experience.
What was his inspiration?
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
See ‘The Buddha Prince’ in this lifetime
Friday 16 September @ 00:37:37 (Read: 2318) |
by Nancy Sartor
Wars, natural disasters, inept governments … couldn’t we all use a lesson in promoting peace and nonviolence, compassion and understanding? That’s exactly what “The Buddha Prince,” a play celebrating the life and teachings of the 14th Dalai Lama, will do when it comes to Minnehaha Falls Park this week.
Co-written, directed and produced by Markell Kiefer, the production will be performed outdoors as a “walking play” that takes the audience on a journey through nature as the story unfolds around them.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Minnesota soldiers’ letters inspire play
Friday 26 August @ 06:06:02 (Read: 2913) |
by Lydia Howell
Watching an encounter between an 80-year-old WWII veteran friend and a female soldier just returned from Baghdad, lifelong actor Frances Ford was struck by the commonality of their experiences. The newest production in her War Plays Project, “Letters To ... Letters From ... Letters Never Written,” presented in a free performance on August 25, was born of veteran’ similarities spanning 125 years.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Must-sees at the Fringe
Thursday 11 August @ 06:51:40 (Read: 3458) |
Challenging plays in annual festival deal with feminism, spirituality
by Adrienne Urbanski
I’ve always treated the Fringe as a sort of trick-or-treating for grownups. With the schedule thrust in your hand you scramble from one play to the next, trying to hit all the shows before they sell out, all while trying to decipher a play’s synopsis from a few pithy sentences typed beneath its picture.
Sometimes you take a chance and the play isn’t remotely close to the description, or sometimes the brief description doesn’t even begin to do justice to the play. Such is the case with “Darleen Dances.”
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“The Laramie Project”: Antidote to hate
Wednesday 13 April @ 00:24:37 (Read: 2521) |
Tribute to murdered gay teen most-performed play in America
by Lydia Howell
On October 6, 1998, 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student, met two men he considered friends at a Laramie bar. The next morning, he was discovered tied to a fence, beaten unconscious. He died a few days later. This brutal murder exposed America to the horror of hate crimes directed at gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Uniting art, activism
Wednesday 02 March @ 20:01:52 (Read: 2944) |
Civil-rights veteran, actor recreates signature character
by Lydia Howell
Fresh from college, in 1962, John O’Neal was a budding playwright with New York theater dreams, but the motion of history swept him South. The Civil Rights movement veteran with over four decades on stage recreates his signature character, Junebug Jabbo Jones, in a production of “Don’t Start Me to Talking or I’ll Tell you Everything I Know” March 5 and 6 at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
‘Teach Me Tonight’ Moving Theater
Friday 18 February @ 22:27:13 (Read: 2682) |
Play offers sympathetic perspective on relationship violence
by Lydia Howell
After the chocolate-induced sugar overdose and Hallmark-inflated Valentine expectations, Bedlam Theatre’s “Teach Me Tonight” offers an edgier experience of romance. This love triangle with darkly comic elements and gender politics dares to look at violence in intimate relationships from a rare perspective: the abuser’s.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
‘STAND’ continues CTC’s theater with integrity
Wednesday 09 February @ 18:03:12 (Read: 2714) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Children’s Theatre Company continues to evina stronghold of integrity. After all, artistic director Peter Brosius could stick to conventional fare and, if he happened to feel like it, give an occasional token nod to a wide world that exists outside the land of privilege. It sure works for a lot of theaters around these parts
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Klein puts new fire in ‘Crucible’
Thursday 20 January @ 12:13:52 (Read: 2859) |
Obie winner finds play about witch hunts parallels modern America
by John Townsend
A little more than four decades ago a young theater arts professor at the University of Minnesota set up a very small outdoor stage on campus and began to speak. She criticized President Kennedy’s saber-rattling over Soviet missiles in Cuba, and pointed out that we had done the equivalent by placing U.S. missiles near the USSR in neighboring Turkey. So, she said, why not have both sides play nice and remove both sets of missiles?
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
You need a laugh
Friday 12 November @ 15:18:06 (Read: 2534) |
by Ed Felien
During times like these it’s good to have old friends that can make us laugh. We need to be reminded that life is quite often ridiculous, and that, somehow, most of us will survive it. Thank heavens and local angels for Theatre de la Jeune Lune and the Chanhassen Dinner Theater.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Frank Theater Scores with ‘A’
Wednesday 27 October @ 22:45:16 (Read: 2773) |
Play sets ‘Scarlet Letter’ in nightmare future
by Amy Danielson
Astounded by the boldly referential, often calculated metaphors of slavery and the dark portrayals of base characters, Friday night’s audience for Frank Theatre’s production of “Fuckin’ A” leapt to an emphatic standing ovation. And rightly so.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Hansel and Gretel open at CTC
Wednesday 08 September @ 14:24:34 (Read: 2570) |
by Ed Felien
The Children’s Theatre—it’s not just for children anymore. The theatre just opened its fall season with two plays in repertory. “Go Dog Go” is for very small children just learning to read and easily amused by broad farce. The 7-year-old I brought was politely condescending. “Hansel and Gretel” is another matter.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Emma and Sasha
Thursday 02 September @ 15:54:04 (Read: 2523) |
Emma Goldman (Erin Appel) and her lover Sasha Berkman (Dylan Fresco) did some authentic leafleting Saturday to advertise their production of “Emma.”
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
HAIR Review
Wednesday 04 August @ 14:46:29 (Read: 4462) |
Anonymous writes: "HAIR: Brilliant, tribal, and provocative.. 35 Years later and the Highs from the energy are still there!
by Andrew Olson
At the Pantages theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota a time machine stopped on Friday night. Not like the Back To The Future DeLorean, but more of an incense, and peppermint VW Van."
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Frinj Benefits
Wednesday 28 July @ 18:48:39 (Read: 2826) |
by Eric Larson
How on the fringe is the Fringe these days? In its 11 years, the Minnesota Fringe Festival has made quite a name for itself. Under the executive direction of Dean Seal — and for the last three years, Leah Cooper — the modest summer gathering of homegrown thespians has become the largest festival of its kind, drawing performers from around the country and, this year, from as far as Paris, France and Bath, England.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
‘Brother to Brother’ bold, moving
Thursday 24 June @ 20:49:25 (Read: 2512) |
by Jim Martyka
Rodney Evans misses the “edge” that once defined gay cinema … and he’s doing everything he can to bring it back.
“There are a lot of positives to having the gay culture as widely accepted as it is right now, especially when it comes to entertainment, such as film and television,” said the openly gay, young director.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
PROOF at the Jon Hassler Theater
Wednesday 12 May @ 11:41:13 (Read: 3445) |
Anonymous writes: "The Jon Hassler Theater in Plainview, MN opens its 5th season of live professional theater with David Auburn's PROOF, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama & the Tony Award for Best New Play. "
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“Talking Masks” examines women’s lives
Wednesday 14 April @ 13:10:11 (Read: 2505) |
by Dwight Hobbes
The upcoming Pillsbury House Theatre/Carlyle Brown & Company collaboration on Brown’s “Talking Masks,” directed by the author and starring Obie Award winner Louise Smith, holds enormous promise.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
"Presence" & "The Agronomist"
Thursday 08 April @ 15:41:54 (Read: 2587) |
by Ed Felien
This loving biography of 80 year old photographer Georg Oddner is at first tedious and almost unbearable. Swedes can sometimes seem like that. But then it takes hold of you. The old man has tricks to show you about taking pictures. He is insatiable. He photographs everything, especially manhole covers and broken umbrellas. He photographs with the intensity of a man about to disappear who wants to remember everything and hold it close.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
The Naked Proof
Thursday 08 April @ 15:42:20 (Read: 2557) |
by Ben Sachs
One of the most original and unassuming comedies I’ve seen in a while, independent filmmaker Jamie Hook’s “The Naked Proof,” is bound to be one of the sweetest surprises of this year’s international film festival.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
"The Letter"
Thursday 08 April @ 14:06:32 (Read: 3611) |
by Ben Sachs
“I could have died 20 times,” says director Ziad Hamzeh plainly, talking about the production of his new film “The Letter.” “They had snipers on the rooftops [when I was filming]. The guards surrounding the event was the biggest police presence they ever assembled in Maine, and I was the only one allowed inside. Even the good people could have shot me!
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“The Front Page” paints cynical yet realistic picture of press
Wednesday 24 March @ 12:52:34 (Read: 2850) |
by Amy Danielson
When “The Front Page” premiered on Broadway in 1928, it was a hit, but also controversial for using profane language, employing racial stereotypes and referencing debaucheries. Lewd comments about women’s sexuality and use of the word “nigger” smear the production. Supposedly playwrights Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur were attempting to paint a realistic picture of working in a Chicago pressroom in the ’20s. And having been former newspapermen themselves, this realism is likely accurate.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“Osiris” combines myth and art
Wednesday 10 March @ 14:08:16 (Read: 3115) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Long before they produced a certain well-received play about being homeless, Pangea World Theater fascinated audiences with the playwriting of co-founder/literary director Meena Natarajan. Specifically, “The Inner World,” her air-tight adaptation of 2,000-year old poetry from India was a fluid tour de force: She utilized an expansive yet structured style passionately rendered with sure-handed, in fact, expert discipline. It is hardly surprising that her track record is, to say the least, enviable.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“Club Dread” is a great film (we mean it, in a nonironic way)
Wednesday 10 March @ 14:01:54 (Read: 3706) |
Ben Sachs
It would be reassuring if Broken Lizard’s films became the standard by which contemporary American film comedy was judged. With “Club Dread,” the five-man troupe has not only made its second masterpiece, but it has cemented its style. Although the film has been marketed as a cult item because of its lowbrow humor and appeals to youth culture, its subtle innovations bear a greater relevance than the ostentation of any of the films that just won multiple Academy Awards.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Some straight talk about Jesus the Christ
Wednesday 03 March @ 13:48:13 (Read: 3551) |
|
by Ed Felien
1. Jesus was a Jew. He wasn’t some blue-eyed,
blond haired Midwestern Protestant magically transplanted to the Middle East
2000 years ago. Every culture creates its god in it own image. Northern horticultural
societies created a vegetative god that told them when to plant. Ancient sheepherding
societies created a shepherd god, etc. The problem comes when you want to expropriate
someone else’s god.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
EXITNOEXIT is a gutsy prison adaptation of Sartre
Friday 27 February @ 13:19:34 (Read: 3133) |
by Lydia Howell
Staggering away after EXITNOEXIT, I felt as if I’d just emerged from the crowded isolation of an American prison cell. This multi-media adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit” is a visceral experience engaging all your senses. Re-imagining Sartre’s meditation on human alienation with a fresh American translation and bold directing is University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater student, Jeremy Catterton. Remember his name, as this play foreshadows greatness for him.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
John Cassavetes and bad jazz have much in common
Friday 27 February @ 13:13:16 (Read: 4087) |
Both flawed, but still passionate
by Ben Sachs
“It’s one of those extremely rare movies that seem found rather than made, in which the internal dynamics of the drama are completely allowed to dictate the shape and structure of the film.”
This was what Dave Kehr wrote of John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence some twenty or so years ago, and I’ve yet to encounter a better, more direct assessment of the director’s art. Cassavetes’ films, which the Oak Street Cinema will screen over the next five consecutive Wednesdays and Thursdays, rank among the greatest in American cinema, yet the sheer uniqueness of their approach have made them difficult to describe.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“Bill of (W)Rights” doesn’t shy away from tough issues
Wednesday 18 February @ 13:54:57 (Read: 3036) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Mixed Blood Theater artistic director Jack Reuler is the closest thing Twin Cities theater has to John Brown. A crazy white man who not only believes we’re all created equal but also doesn’t think some of us are more equal than others.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“Predator-Prey” wrangles with the supernatural & spiritual
Wednesday 11 February @ 11:43:46 (Read: 3526) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Few notions more profoundly seduce the imagination than the supernatural and the spiritual. There isn’t a recorded civilization, even so far back as cave dwellers, that doesn’t hold “the other world” and its presumed denizens in special regard.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
New and established artists find place at Festival of One-Woman Shows
Monday 09 February @ 16:09:09 (Read: 3252) |
by Amy Danielson
There is an offering for every aesthetic sensibility. Whether it is off-the-wall puppetry, retelling of traditional Jewish stories, multimedia interpretations of traditional folktales or an amalgam of spoken word, dance and poetry, the artists performing in the upcoming Festival of One-Woman Shows at the Center for Independent Artists share one important commonality: a unique storytelling ability.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Filmmaker Guy Madin draws influence from melodramas and, uh, German porn
Monday 09 February @ 15:56:10 (Read: 3329) |
by Jim Martyka
Guy Maddin can be influenced by anything and everything, depending upon his current mood. During this particular interview, the Canadian filmmaker seems happy and easily excitable, talking a mile a minute and blowing the minds of anybody who might be listening, including a writer who is becoming more and more fascinated by the moment.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Actor/Playwright Jim Stowell's “Joe”: Activist's Life is Inspiring Entertainment
Wednesday 21 January @ 15:29:08 (Read: 2993) |
by Lydia Howell
“What people told me about Joe is how REAL he is—over and over that’s the word they used. That he’s honest and has integrity. They also told me that working with Joe made them INSANE!” This is how Actor/playwright Jim Stowell describes the real-life character he portrays in his current Great American History Theatre production, “Joe,” the life of Project for Pride in Living (PPL) founder, Joe Selvaggio.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“Global Lens” at Walker proves that cinema is better sans DiCaprio, Cruise and K
Wednesday 07 January @ 13:09:43 (Read: 3238) |
by Dwight Hobbes
You've got to get out of the American film-viewing mindset in order to dig Global Lens, but trust me, it’s worth it. If subtitles are more than you can bear, well, probably this kind of stuff is beyond you and you ought to go do something else—like, maybe catch up on your Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman or Halle Berry ogling.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“21 Grams” : an outsider’s perspective on America
Tuesday 23 December @ 19:44:46 (Read: 3378) |
by Ben Sachs
In the past few years, the pessimism and foreboding of movies like Fritz Lang’s “Fury” (1936), Douglas Sirk’s “All That Heaven Allows” (1954) and even Paul Verhoeven’s “Hollow Man” (2000) seem especially relevant in light of the Bush administration’s hunt for enemies and increasing suppression of civil liberties. There are elements of the culture, it seems, that need to be seen through the eyes of an outsider in order to amplify its resonance.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“Forget Baghdad” & “Menelik”: Films of immigrant experience
Wednesday 17 December @ 14:38:21 (Read: 3388) |
by Lydia Howell
Looking at experiences of Arab and Ethiopian Jews (people so marginalized I did not know they even existed) illuminated my sense of new immigrants here in the Twin Cities. In “Forget Baghdad,” a core tenet of assimilation is tested: the pressure “to forget your culture, forget your language and to become the enemy of your own past.”
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“The Human Stain” avoids confronting racial issues
Wednesday 03 December @ 14:10:05 (Read: 4533) |
by Julia Curran
First of all, a disclaimer: I’m not a cinema guru. On my list of things I’d rather not do, watching movies, especially serious ones without Colin Firth, is only slightly better than swimming in Lake Calhoun in the winter or spending a weekend at the mall. That said, the premise of “The Human Stain intrigued me”—an African American man passes as a white Jew and becomes dean of a college where everything comes crumbling down with an accusation of racism from African-American students whom he’s never seen.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
The performances in “Topdog/Underdog” overcomes a weak script
Wednesday 19 November @ 13:41:07 (Read: 3690) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Actors of Jahi Kearse’s caliber don’t come along everyday. Hell, theatergoers are fortunate when such a performer comes along at all. Especially when the performer gets to carry half of a two-hour-plus show that fully demands about as much as actors can give.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Minneapolis Racial Climate Adds Weight to Othello
Wednesday 12 November @ 23:01:51 (Read: 4999) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Chris Rock stepped onstage at the Historic Orpheum Theater a few years back and without batting an eye the first words out of his mouth were, “Does every brotha in Minneapolis have a white woman?” The whole damned place fell out in hysterics with whole sections of sistahs springing to their feet, hollering like hell, clapping their hands so hard you had to wonder if a few of ‘em didn’t sprain a wrist.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Wiseman’s films tell story of American life
Wednesday 29 October @ 14:39:38 (Read: 3143) |
by Jim Martyka
Ask Frederick Wiseman and he’ll say that his goal in life over the past 25-plus years has been to make as many films as possible about the many varying aspects of American life. And critics agree, that is exactly what the renowned documentary filmmaker has done and continues to do.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“Ten Bedroom Heart”
Wednesday 15 October @ 13:33:41 (Read: 3032) |
Garden of sensual humorous delights
by Lydia Howell
In this country, the “culture wars” around sexuality boomerang between rightwing Puritans and pornographic marketeers—both of whom are totally clueless about the complicated beauty of sex.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“Sweet Nothing” could use less message and more play
Tuesday 14 October @ 19:41:09 (Read: 3478) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Stephen Sach’s message play “Sweet Nothing In My Ear” at Mixed Blood Theatre could stand to be less message and more play. Not that the message — deaf people must be acknowledged on their own terms — is at all meaningless.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
SMMASH film festival keeps focus on midwest film
Tuesday 14 October @ 19:32:42 (Read: 3422) |
by Jim Martyka
John Swon knew there had to be a better venue for Midwestern independent filmmakers to show their work. There hadn’t been any major film festivals in that part of the country in years if ever, with the exception of the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival, which, without the right connections or acclaim, provided a challenge for most filmmakers. So Swon, a director and founder of Minneapolis-based Reel Cinema Entertainment, knew there would be some local interest … but he had no idea how much.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
“Jesus” offers rough ride
Wednesday 08 October @ 11:54:45 (Read: 3555) |
by Dwight Hobbes
Pillsbury House Theatre opens 2003-04 with a show that can be expected to draw healthy crowds. We seldom get downright grim fare in Twin Cities theater, so the change of pace likely will arch an eyebrow or two, provoking enough thought to have audiences wagging their tongues among family, friends and neighbors.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Al Milgrom tackles Toronto’s film festival
Wednesday 24 September @ 15:22:05 (Read: 4298) |
by Al Milgrom
Like the dog that saved Flanders, North America’s most prominent film festival saved the city of Toronto, itself wondering if it would survive the SARS scare, the West Nile invasion and the return of SARS. Not to worry. The l0-day annual celebration of the Seventh Art ending little more than a week ago claimed more than l00,000 visitors viewing some 340 films on 22 screens, racking up l,000 presentations, with more than 700 journalists registered worldwide.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Of course they hated it!
Thursday 11 September @ 14:59:09 (Read: 3682) |
by Ed Felien
“Masked and Anonymous” is not an ordinary movie, and it’s been panned by all the establishment critics. It’s more like the Beatles’ “Hard Day’s Night” than a Hollywood formula film. It’s part rockumentary and part “Apocalypse Now,” and, mainly, it’s a discussion of valid strategy and tactics in revolutionary situations. How could mainstream critics be expected to understand that?
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
Bonhoeffer: Film about would-be Hitler assassin hits the U-Film Society
Wednesday 23 July @ 15:30:35 (Read: 3500) |
by David Anderson
Perhaps the most compelling of the many stories of those who suffered or endured the ravages of the Third Reich are of its citizens who dared to resist the brutalities of the regime.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
The play from outer space, Bedlam Theatre's 'Terminus' an other-worldly delight
Thursday 16 May @ 00:26:21 (Read: 5459) |
Bedlam Theatre enjoys a loyal following (opening weekend of the current production quickly sold out) with good reason. This determinedly bohemian venue backs eccentricity with unassailable professionalism. “Terminus,” adapted by founding company members Julian McFaul and John F. Bueche from Stanislaw Lem’s “Tales of Pilot Pirx” is nothing if not a daring stab at the avant garde. The concept alone—a sci-fi ghost story—intrigues.
| | Read More... | Add Comments |
|
|
|
|
