The Thing That Goes Bump in the Night
Watching “Paranormal Activity” with a crowd feels like watching a magic show on a roller coaster. We scream, then we laugh because we screamed (aren’t we silly?), then we scream again when the ride takes another drop. After having toured widely — the show has been in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington — it is polished to a cold shine. From a design and direction standpoint, it’s incredible, and the illusions designer Chris Fisher has a true sorcerer’s touch: an exhilarating scare in the first act breaks every brain in the audience.
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Pope/Bettany Elevate ‘The Collaboration’ Into Art Worth Contemplating
One of them paved a path of his own ascending to artistic godhood by glorifying the mundane; the other painted SAMO (meaning the Same Old Sh*t) criticizing the very idea of repetition. One of them broke down the wall between art and business; for the other, walls didn’t mean a thing. One saw beauty, immortality, […]
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Complex Men and Caricatures of Women Are Caught ‘Between Riverside and Crazy’
Walter “Pops” Washington, as he self-describes in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer-winning play Between Riverside and Crazy, is “a flesh and blood, pee standing up, registered Republican.” He is also a litigious former cop caught within the crossroads of bureaucracy, racism, life as a widower, and a fast-gentrifying Riverside Drive. He also happens to be Black. […]
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