A Man Escaped Based on a French lieutenant’s account of his 1942 escape from a gestapo fortress in Lyons, this stately yet uncommonly gripping 1956 feature is my choice as the greatest achievement of our greatest living filmmaker, Robert Bresson (rivaled only by his more corrosive and metaphysical Au hasard Balthazar a decade later). The […]
Tag: Vol. 28 No. 26
Issue of Apr. 1 – 7, 1999
Posted inArts & Culture
The Little Foxes and La Bete
THE LITTLE FOXES and LA BETE, Court Theatre. The two very different plays in Court’s rotating repertory this year showcase the ensemble’s versatility. The Little Foxes is a brilliantly constructed, relentlessly realistic expose of a greedy southern clan, while the farcical, quirky La Bete is exuberantly stylized. Unfortunately, the whole isn’t greater than the sum […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Touching the Scars
Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century at the Smart Museum, through April 18 By Mark Swartz Here in America we like to think the 60s were a big deal because some students grew their hair long, took drugs, and burned the flag. France looks back in awe at the same […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories The Times of London reported in March that a British government program is providing a convicted rapist in his 30s with Viagra to treat the depression he has been suffering from since his release from prison a year ago. Doctors at Saint George’s Hospital in London say his main problem now is his […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Other Machiavelli
The Mandrake–a Renaissance Musical Greasy Joan & Company at the Chopin Theatre By Jack Helbig Niccolo Machiavelli would seem an unlikely source for a witty, good-hearted comedy–much less one enlivened every ten minutes or so by a showstopping musical number. But here it is, a rollicking comedy by Machiavelli, translated by Christopher Tiffany, with music […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Group Efforts: people running for shelters
Jessica Baker tries to peel her three-year-old brother’s fingers from their viselike grip on the plastic handcuffs, but each little digit snaps back into place as soon as it’s removed. “Aaa! No! Aaa! No! Aaa! No!” the boy cries rhythmically as he holds on for dear life to his older brother’s toy. “Let go, Vincent,” […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Heavy Toll
How Illinois is turning its prisoners’ calls to their families into a million-dollar-a-year industry.
Posted inArts & Culture
Mother Russia
MOTHER RUSSIA, Phoenix Theatre, at the Theatre Building. Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher is probably best known here for his clever, unconventional literary adaptations: in the last year and a half, Bailiwick has staged his Shaw-inspired Smash and Pyewacket his Turn of the Screw. Now the Phoenix Theatre, based in Indianapolis, brings an original Hatcher work to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Uncontrolled Bleating
Blood Line: The Oedipus/Antigone Story Thirteenth Tribe at the Viaduct Theatre Electra TinFish Productions By Justin Hayford Any company tackling classical Greek drama must answer one thorny question: Why should a contemporary audience care about ancient royals hounded by gods, driven by prophecies, and plagued by outlandish passions? If we go to the theater to […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Reader to Reader
Overheard at Double Door during a set by the Murder City Devils: The brunette with a topknot and tendrils was adamant, saying, “No, no, no! Jesus was not a Jew, OK? Not only was he not a Jew, he was a Greek. And he was an Aries.” –Joy Bergmann Reader to Reader welcomes (and pays […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Out in the Cold
The city seems determined to make a disabled man’s life even more difficult.
Posted inNews & Politics
Death Sentence
By Bruce Hirsch Just what exactly is the nature of that deal between the bunnies and the chickies anyhow? It would seem to me that it’s the poultry families who are getting the short and greasy end of the stick here, bravely sacrificing up the children each year, just like little feathered Abrahams offering up […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Savage Love
I’m still on vacation–here’s another of my “greatest hits.” Two letters arrived in the same envelope. There was an attached note instructing me to read this one first: I am a het woman engaged to be married to a man I love very deeply. He is a feminist, is supportive and caring, and loves me […]
Posted inMusic
Good Company
Steve Earle & the Del McCoury Band at the Vic, March 25 By Peter Margasak The first few times I listened to The Mountain, the new album Steve Earle recorded with the Del McCoury Band, I couldn’t stop thinking what poor use he’d made of the group he himself calls the “best bluegrass band working […]