Posted inArts & Culture

Elsinore

Kevin Kline may have lampooned the idea in the movie Soapdish, but two of the world’s great theatrical innovators actually staged one-man versions of Hamlet last year. Texas-born Theater of Images guru Robert Wilson premiered his Hamlet at Houston’s Alley Theatre in May, while Quebec’s Robert Lepage (star attraction of Chicago’s last International Theatre Festival […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Jellyeye

When I was a kid watching the Raspberry Day parade in Hopkins, Minnesota, I always loved the drum-and-bugle corps best because they shook me right up the middle, from the bottom of my sneakers to the top of my baking head. Jellyeye also plays percussion loud–but the eight-member troupe does a lot besides. Like wear […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Ravenscroft

Ravenscroft, Pendulum Theatre Company, at the Athenaeum Theatre. Don Nigro’s play is a Sleuth-style puzzler that scatters more red herrings than a fishmonger in Finland: the handsome handyman at the Ravenscroft estate was recently killed by a fall down the stairs of the main house, only months after Mr. Ravens-croft met his end in the […]

Posted inMusic

Julie Wilson

JULIE WILSON If you prefer icy dry irony to pop sentimentality for your Valentine’s music, don’t miss Julie Wilson, cabaret’s coolest queen, when she hits town next week after a two-year absence. A master of the sprechstimme style, which fuses singing and speech into an indivisible whole, this musical-theater veteran turns songs by the likes […]

Posted inMusic

Fareed Haque Quartet

FAREED HAQUE QUARTET I don’t think you can play the guitar much better than Fareed Haque. On both electric and classical instruments he strikes each note with perfect attack and timing no matter what the speed–and damn the genre. His music contains plenty of genres, from flamenco to jazz-rock fusion, Indian music to pure American […]

Posted inNews & Politics

News of the Weird

Lead Story Latest nicotine urges: Connecticut inmate Frank W. Banks, assigned to a no-smoking prison, was convicted in December of mailing harassing letters to a judge. Banks said he thought threats via the U.S. mail would cause him to be sent to a federal prison where he could smoke. And in November three stranded Alaska […]