There are plenty of movies about sex, but not enough movies about sexual pleasure involving women of a certain age.
View More Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (dir. Sophie Hyde): Film review
Category: Reviews
INTO THE WOODS (Arden): A Sondheim show for grown-ups
No woods. No cutesy pop-up book set. Just three hours of pure musical theater pleasure: gorgeous melodies, clever lyrics, profound ideas and a dream cast.…
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FABULATION, OR THE RE-EDUCATION OF UNDINE (Lantern): A funny play with a serious agenda
Lynn Nottage knows how to “sustain the complexity” so that this funny play with a serious agenda works
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FAIRVIEW (Wilma): 60-second review
Pulitzer winners aren’t always great theatrical works, but they are often very revealing about the times in which they won
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Fire Island (dir. Andrew Ahn): Film review
Pack your poppers, lube, and rainbow bikini briefs — director Andrew Ahn’s Fire Island takes us to the gay mecca off the South Shore of…
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HAIRSPRAY (National Tour at Miller Theater): As fresh as ever
I was delighted to find that the charms of Hairspray are still hard to resist.
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The Musical Legacy of Charles V: Piffaro Founders’ Finale
The final concert for Piffaro founders Joan Kimball and Bob Wiemken is far from a somber affair as they celebrate a thriving Renaissance band as their legacy.
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REVERIE (Azuka Theatre): Aiming for a high bar
What with James Ijames winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (bravo!) two days ago, the bar was set very high for his newest play
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Pleasure (Dir. Ninja Thyberg): Film review
They always say, “it’s not what you know, but who you know.” That might be true in any industry where there’s room for growth, and…
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Hatching (Dir. Hanna Bergholm): Film review
A satire of suburban ennui melded with a girlhood drama has never morphed more seamlessly into a body-horror monster movie.
View More Hatching (Dir. Hanna Bergholm): Film review
WHERE WE BELONG (PTC): A young woman’s earnest and confused identity crisis
An impressively credentialed show from The Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in association with the Folger Shakespeare Library is launching its national tour in Philadelphia.
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The Northman (dir. Robert Eggers): Film review
“The Northman” might be Robert Eggers’ most accessible film and yet it never compromises itself as a Robert Eggers film, complete with old-world authenticity and forbidding weirdness. I
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Dual (dir. Riley Stearns): Film review
Not everyone will be on filmmaker Riley Stearns’ oddball wavelength, but it’s the viewer’s choice. In the case of droll, tightly-scripted sci-fi black comedy “Dual,” they’ll wish they could be. In what is very much from Stearns’ voice, the film is dryly comic, offbeat, andvanchored by dual performances from Karen Gillan that are subtly disparate but equally deadpan and finely tuned.
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Waitress Goes Down Sweet As Pie
NETworks non-equity presentation of Waitress at the Kimmel Center delivers a production that is full of sweetness, laughs, and lovely music.
There is something so comforting about the American diner. The smell of bacon, the reliably hot coffee, the servers who’s brusk care is well-worn but personal. Likewise, Waitress, feels comforting, and certainly more filling than some other recent movie-to-musical broadway adaptations.
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You Won’t Be Alone (dir. Goran Stolevski): Film Review
“You Won’t Be Alone,” Goran Stolevski’s writing-directing feature debut, is something special. More than just “arthouse horror,” Stolevski’s film is a haunting meditation on identity, humanity, and how everything is relative, but also a sensory experience with some bloody innards. It’s unsettling, yet challenging and magical, and if you just let it wash over you, the spell is rewarding.
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Quintessence Breaking the Cycle with Tragi-Comedy The Winter’s Tale
As part of its Transformation Repertory, Quintessence Theatre Company presents one of Shakespeare’s most beguiling plays, The Winter’s Tale. Sometimes classified as a “late romance,” or a “tragi-comedy,” or simply “a problem play,” The Winter’s Tale spans two countries and 16 years.
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Lantern Theater’s Brave Return to Stage: A Man For All Seasons
What a brave return to live theater this production is! Lantern Theater Company gives us old-time drama and powerful theater, full of big ideas and complex language, rather than a bit of fluff to amuse or console us. With a top-notch cast and clever direction by Peter DeLaurier, it’s a heady three hours.
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The Outfit (dir. Graham Moore): Film review
Author Graham Moore (who adapted his book The Imitation Game for the Benedict Cumberbatch-starrer of the same name) makes his writing-directing debut, and he decidedly shows a lot of skill in ratcheting up tension and claustrophobia in mostly one room for one long night. It’s a little like Hitchcock’s Rope in that way, but with more sharp objects.
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A Powerful Revival: Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma!
Walking into the Forrest Theatre, patrons are assaulted by the glaringly-bright light of the stage. This production of Oklahoma!, the lights seem to say, will hide nothing. In many ways, Daniel Fish’s revival lives up to this promise.
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Seasons of RENT: A young cast helps an aging show
For millennial theater kids, it is hard to overstate the cultural importance of Rent. First produced in 1996, the contemporary retelling of Pucini’s La bohème introduced me and my peers to rock ballads, profanity, drug use, sex, homelessness, and AIDS. Presented in Philly as part of its “25th Anniversary Farewell” tour, this Rent feels adolescent, that is: young, passionate, loud, and slightly dumb.
View More Seasons of RENT: A young cast helps an aging show