The Winter’s Tale (Photo courtesy of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company) Tell all the truth but tell it slant —Success in Circuit liesToo bright for our infirm DelightThe Truth’s superb surpriseAs Lightning to the Children easedWith explanation kindThe Truth must dazzle graduallyOr every man be blind — This famous 8 line poem by Emily Dickinson is the […]
Shakespeare on the Boston Common (Photo: Courtesy of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company) This summer has the look of life back in 2019. Lots of concerts, outdoor gatherings, busy beaches, people on vacations, overbooked flights. Even so, dogged remnants of where we have been remain, like masked faces that can still be spotted in the crowds. (I […]
I think it’s particularly worrying at the moment because you can only create in an atmosphere of freedom, where you’re not checking everything you say critically before you move on. What you have to be able to do is to build without knowing where you’re going because you’ve never been there before. That’s what creativity […]
These days it feels like a gesture of emotional safety—like securing a seat belt around your soul—to step out of the confusion of our daily existence and look at life as a full blown allegory. What happens when you allow it to all be an enchanted journey, with symbols and meaning that come together and […]
Richard III, now on the Boston Common (All photos: Commonwealth Shakespeare Company) Storytelling fascinates me. It is considered primal to the human condition. My guess is that you, like me, are soothed—and intrigued—when you hear the words, “Let me tell you a story.” Because I am not a particularly good storyteller—my preferred form of personal […]
Opening scene from “Romeo and Juliet,” Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Boston MA What is the point of making beautiful things, or of cherishing the beauty of the past, when ugliness runs rampant? Those who work in the realm of the arts have been asking themselves that question in recent weeks. The election of Donald Trump, and […]
From Woman in the Dunes (Photo: Cinescope) We are living through one of those eras when the political spills profusely into the personal. Up to our hips in toxic Trump floodwaters, the landscape of daily life has been transformed. I keep thinking of Hiroshi Teshigahara‘s 1964 iconic film, Woman in the Dunes, and its interminable […]
Coriolanus, on the Boston Common (Photo: Tamir Kalifa for the Boston Globe) How invigorating to revisit something you thought you knew (and might have dismissed as “been there, done that”) and find it utterly compelling. That was my response after seeing the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s production of Coriolanus last night. Not one of my favorite […]
Will LeBow as the King of France in All’s Well That Ends Well, now playing on the Boston Common Do not miss the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company‘s production of All’s Well That End’s Well, free on the Common through August 14. Last year’s production of Othello with Seth Gilliam and James Waterston (reviewed here) was spectacular […]
Seth Gilliam plays Othello Theater alert for Bostonians and anyone who might be visiting town through August 15: Do whatever you need to do to your summer schedule to see the spectacular (and free!) production of Othello on the Boston Common. We are regulars and have seen most of the Commonwealth Shakespeare productions over the […]