Ann Lemons Pollack
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Romeo and Juliet
Given that a feud between their families is what turns "Romeo and Juliet" into a tragedy, it's a standard playwright's device to put the characters into a different time frame. So Leonard Bernstein turned them into rival New York gangs. And the Black Rep did it a few months ago in a city like St.
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The Joneses
There's an interesting opening sequence in "The Joneses," an imaginative touch that carries product placement to new heights. A moving van tools into a very fancy suburb, parks in front of an equally fancy house. A team of movers unloads the truck and starts arranging furniture according to a very detailed plan. A truck carries
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Vincere
He was definitely a junior partner in his relationship with Adolf Hitler, but Benito Mussolini was a major player in the rise of fascism and the history of the time between the wars that defined the first half of the 20th century. "Vincere," (to win) shines some light on the dictator's earlier years. Some excellent
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Gokul
It had been a long time since we last visited Gokul, the vegetarian Indian restaurant on Page Avenue, but we stopped at the enlarged Seema Enterprises recently to pick up some Indian groceries (fresh kari leaves!), and found an excuse and a freshly whetted appetite to stop for lunch next door. No longer just a
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This Week’s Wine, April 13, 2010
The dynasties of European winemakers often go back seven or eight centuries. Three or four generations does it for Americans, but it's important to remember that the American wine industry took a hammer blow from Prohibition, and not long after its repeal, World War II came along. In effect, the industry stopped for some 25
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Outlying Islands
The outlying islands off the Scottish coast, in both the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, are those which do not make up part of larger groups. They have names like Sula Sgeir and Innis Mhor and hardly any support a human population. They are isolated and desolate. They make excellent locations for plays because
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A Doll’s House
Few plays ever deserved the accolade of "groundbreaking" like "A Doll's House," written in 1879 and still powerful enough to draw gasps from the audience at the Gaslight Theatre, where a powerful production by the St. Louis Actors Studio opened last night to run through Aprl 25. Henrik Ibsen's classic tale of Torvald Helmer
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Legally Blonde
With the Tax Man visiting in less than a week, it's important to clear the mind before the late start we all get, or to assuage the pain of the check we have to write, or to relieve the depression caused by the one we just wrote. "Legally Blonde," which opened a weekend run at
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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson is a marvelous story-teller who also was a popular, crusading left-wing journalist. His sudden death in 2004 at age 50 precluded his opportunity to see or know how successful, famous and wealthy he was about to become. His "Millenium Trilogy" ("The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," originally titled in Swedish, "Men Who Hate
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Eric Michael Gillett
Eric Michael Gillett is a cabaret performer with talent, and he obviously believes, stubbornly or courageously–or both–in what he is doing. Of course I'm affected by many years of being who I am, but I felt it a living oxymoron to see a middle-aged man with a neat mustache and goatee, wearing a dark suit