See What I'm Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary

See What I'm Saying is an irreverent yet important introduction between Deaf performers and a mainstream hearing audience. The film, which is open captioned, follows a year in the lives of four performers who make up a cross-section of the Deaf community in terms of art form, race, gender, and sexuality.

Joe Frank (03/13/2010)

To presume to review Joe Frank is somewhat to akin to being a happy floating paramecium—although I do tend to fancy myself more of a sleek euglena, and in reality might more resemble an amorphous and permeable amoeba—to be such a creature, swimming giddily or cluelessly drifting in a little globule of ooze, and to attempt to gaze up through the tensile surface of the liquid from beneath, through the intervening air, up through the lenses of the microscope in their black enamel encasement, although such microscopes may be but a relic of my youth, and then attempt to

Renaissance: Song of Scheherazade Live

Renaissance is a notable 1970s folk rock band that developed a large fan base by having symphonic rock instrumentals contrasted by haunting female vocals and whimsical, intelligent lyrics. Renaissance: Song of Scheherazade Live includes video from the band’s performances at Capital Theatre in 1976 and their 1979 performance at Convention Hall. A great fuss was made when Cherry Red announced their release of Renaissance's concert footage.

A Night of Shorts (06/05/2009)

The Wellesley Project’s inaugural show, A Night of Shorts, brought six single-scene dramatic performances and two choreographed pieces to the WorkShop Theatre for a short-run at the beginning of June. While home for the Project is New York City, its namesake—Wellesley College—figures as the catalyzing spirit behind the Project’s conception. Its founders, Caitlin Graham and Janice Yang, envisioned the Project as an artistic medium for women to pursue opportunities in both theater and production.

Loney Dear (4/5/2009)

It is so ridiculously obvious why the kids are flipping out about this impressively under-the-radar Nordic crooner. It doesn’t matter if gnat-attention-span hipsters can’t name his influences, the history that brought us to now. It doesn’t matter if they forget the album tomorrow (though it’s clearly their loss). What does matter is when amazing music comes forth. What matters is keeping it in our hearts once the fair-weather fans have moved onto the next big college radio hit. When I was coming up, Polyvinyl was a key player among emo purveyors.

Strange Interlude: The Neo-Futurists (03/06/2009)

What is a reviewer to think as she is sitting and watching a production: austere set, minimal furniture, iconic ghost image of a handsome soldier in a size usually used to honor Mao, selected text excerpts in bright blue type sans serif typeface and what is the significance of the serif is it phallic?—the viewer, sitting and waiting and watching the production?  Oh so outré, so unconventional, so smashing of convention, oh yes, so smashingly surreal and unconventional and aren't we clever that we “get it” ha ha ha oh yes insert droll laughter here, as the considerably older and more affluen

Homens ao Mar (Sea Plays) (1/28/2009)

Companhia Triptal's staging of O'Neill's Sea Plays refuses a fourth wall through three sets and forced-march participation, a “Blue Waterman Group,” perhaps. There was a risk of getting damp, but the audience was not pelted with salt pork. The plays are set on the S. S. Glencairn, a cargo freighter packed with dynamite heading from Baltimore to Britain. Viewers gather in the Owen Theatre and first hear intermittent singing, one presumes sea chanties—fifteen men on a dead man's chest, a yo ho ho and a bottle of rum—except in Portuguese. Supertitles were not provided, but a synopsis was.

Nine Inch Nails (12/7/2008)

I've never been a diehard Nine Inch Nails fan, but have listened to them on and off since high school. I've never seen frontman Trent Reznor or his music as misogynistic; in fact, "Closer" is one of my all-time favorite songs. And to be fair, the only semi-nude images on visual display in this show were equal opportunity, male and female. Whatever else you want to say about them, NIN gave fans in Portland, Oregon their money's worth.