Archive for the ‘Arts/Review’ Category
Borderlands offers a commendable, if uneven examination of modern-day male/female relationships
by Sherilyn Forrester
Borderlands Theater has tagged its season, “What’s Under that Skirt? A Borderline Look at Gender.” Two of the season’s three plays (four, if you count A Tucson Pastorela) are contemporary works written by women. First came She Was My Brother, which dealt with a fascinating issue but was not very effective dramatically. The second and current offering is Between Pancho Villa and a Naked Woman, by Sabina Berman. It’s funny and thoughtful, and though it is somewhat flawed, it’s the…
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The great Lynn Redgrave explores her mother’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ obsession
by Sherilyn Forrester
What’s in a name?” inquires Romeo in the Bard’s famed tale of doomed love. The answer, if the name happens to be Redgrave: Quite a bit, actually. The family Redgrave is chock full of actors, awards and genuine fame borne from an impressive body of work spanning five generations. And if your name is Lynn Redgrave, you’re also a skilled and passionate storyteller. Lynn Redgrave, sponsored by the Invisible Theatre, is bringing her most recent venture to town for two…
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John Gutmann’s Depression-era photos shine at the Center for Creative Photography
by Margaret Regan
It took a Nazi clampdown to turn John Gutmann into a photographer. Gutmann’s big retrospective at the Center for Creative Photography, some 118 photographs strong, is mostly about America from the 1930s to the 1980s. It’s full of angular, off-center black-and-whites that delight in American street life, from its painted signs to its denizens of every race. All of the pictures are unabashedly modernist works, with strange diagonals and odd points of view. In one, a living giant is being…
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by Margaret Regan
The dancing candy canes and Sugar Plum fairies continue their lively occupation of the Old Pueblo. Nutcracker season is not over yet, not by a long shot. Make that not by a toe shoe. Two local studios make their moves this weekend. Ballet Rincon goes on at 7 p.m., Friday, Dec. 18, and 2 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 19, at the Santa Rita High School Auditorium, 3951 S. Pantano Road; $8 to $14; 574-3040. A Time to Dance takes time to…
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‘A Pickwick Christmas’ has brought Dickens to Tucson for 10 years running
by Nathan Christensen
The holiday season is full of traditions, especially in Tucson. One particular Tucson holiday institution, now making its 10th annual appearance, is Top Hat Theatre Club’s A Pickwick Christmas. Written and performed by Top Hat’s producing director, James Gooden, the show is adapted from the three Christmas chapters in Charles Dickens’ first novel, The Pickwick Papers. We live in an age where “everything has to be at our beck and call, and our cell phone can’t be too far from…
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ZUZI! marks the year’s shortest day with the company’s 12th annual solstice show
by Margaret Regan
Each summer, when the days are long and the sun shines bright, Nanette Robinson thinks about winter’s shadows. The artistic director of Tucson’s ZUZI! Dance Company, Robinson directs the company’s annual Solstice concert during December’s darkest days. But she starts the planning in the white-hot summer. She dreamed up this year’s theme, House Made of Light, while she was spending time by a lake. “I was watching the light reflecting on the water, and thinking about a lighthouse, a safe…
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Longtime TMA staffer John McNulty at long last steps into the solo art spotlight
by Margaret Regan
John McNulty claims he became a ceramicist because he couldn’t draw. “I wanted to be an artist,” he says, but he was discouraged about his drawing prowess, or lack thereof, when he was an art student at the State University of New York at Potsdam—so discouraged, in fact, that he added a second major and planned to get certified as a social-studies teacher. Then, one day, he had a chance encounter with clay. “I happened to go downstairs in the…
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Borderlands’ merry ‘Pastorela’ once again reflects the spirit of Tucson
by Nathan Christensen
In this age of big-budget movies and streaming video, it’s easy to question the value of live theater. A movie ticket is cheap, and theater certainly can’t compare in terms of pyrotechnics or CGI. Is there, in fact, anything you can do onstage that can’t be done better on film? The answer is a resounding yes, and anyone who doubts this should attend Borderlands Theater’s A Tucson Pastorela, now making its 14th annual appearance in the Old Pueblo. A Tucson…
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ATC’s ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ musical revue is oh so fine
by Sherilyn Forrester
There’s a party onstage at the Temple of Music and Art. It’s hosted by the Arizona Theatre Company, and we’re all invited. It even has a name: Ain’t Misbehavin’. And, oh baby, yeah, it is a Tony Award-winning tribute to the music and mischief of Thomas “Fats” Waller. Thanks to the talented cast of five and the rockin’ rhythm of the first-rate orchestra, we are exuberantly gathered into the bosom, heart and soul of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s…
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The goofy Christmas fare at LTW and Gaslight will cheer even the hardest hearts
by Sherilyn Forrester
Humbug! There. I’ve said it. Not everyone loves this time of year, you know. Oh, people light candles. They chop down perfectly lovely trees; they eat fudge and fruitcake and latkes and sour cream until even the seams of their banquet pants are seriously strained. But this is all a diversion: Darkness is descending, people. No amount of fa-la-la-ing is going to change that. Meanwhile, theaters have gotten into the holiday act, with seasonal folderol bouncing on the boards around…
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