Monday, October 14, 2013
Interestingly, both of these powerful visions of horror root their avenging vision of mayhem in the brutal mistreatment of children.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 10:10AMSunday, October 6, 2013
Ring Lardner wrote the funniest stand-alone sentence using the fewest words with which that feat can be done: "'Shut up,' he explained."
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:40AMWednesday, September 25, 2013
Pulitzer prize-winning dramatist Robert Schenkkan is chained to a dreary, fact-driven approach in "All the Way," tossing in bits and pieces of "what if" for unconvincing dramatic effect.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:00AMWednesday, August 28, 2013
Those who champion the arts need to realize that talk is cheap -- we have to fight to get a place at the political table.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 02:50PMThursday, August 15, 2013
Nothing is going to be done about the posting of the review in the Boston Globe. The reasoning is that, because the newspaper didn't send its own critic, it hadn't broken the ban. This is in…
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 12:12PMSaturday, August 10, 2013
Author Douglas Kennedy is beginning to generate a considerable readership in this country. He will be reading at the Boston Public Library on August 15 at 6 p.m.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 04:15PMIntellectual frameworks such as “the rise of Europe,” “the decline of the East,” or “the clash of civilizations,” tell us more about the laziness of the human mind than they do a…
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 01:20PMThursday, August 1, 2013
The Titanic Theatre Company production struggles with Christopher Durang's superficial satire and manages to squeeze some laughs out of it.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:19AMMonday, July 29, 2013
In 2011, the Boston Globe characterized the Lowell Folk Festival as "a celebration of diversity." This year, the floundering newspaper isn't interested in celebrating anything but itself.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:50PMWednesday, July 24, 2013
Surely the lesson of "Pygmalion" is that Eliza should never look back. She doesn't need to.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:35PM"The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra" is a compelling celebration of art as a force of nature, a fragile yet indomitable demand for possibility despite the constraints of a torpid existence.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:06AMThursday, July 18, 2013
Efforts to ensure that arts education is a significant part of our schools is not the kind of glamorous activity that prys dollars out of the wallets of donors or drums up tourism.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:49AMTuesday, July 16, 2013
The Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's production of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" is spunky and engaging -- but the play is spun in one direction, away from its weird edginess.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:34PMMonday, July 8, 2013
Nabokov will become much more seriously playful about extinction and the nature of love in the increasingly complex fables to come. "The Tragedy of Mr. Morn" is his initial earnest fairy tal…
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:08AMWednesday, June 26, 2013
Dan Kennedy could have written a book that extols the "Huffington Post," WGBH, or Patch as the future of serious community journalism. He doesn't, which means that he is on the side of the a…
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 10:55AMWednesday, June 5, 2013
It turns out that budding arts writers are anxious to learn how to master the demanding nuts and bolts of reviewing, especially given how few examples of first-rate criticism can be found in…
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:03PMWednesday, May 22, 2013
Come celebrate the music of Sun Ra: legendary jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet, theatrical ringmaster, and lyricist of the extra terrestrial.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:13AMMonday, May 20, 2013
Mayer's report deals with David Koch throwing his weight around at WNET and PBS. Unfortunately, she does not talk about whether Koch's powerful presence has influenced WGBH.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:02PMFriday, May 17, 2013
Deadpan sarcasm perfectly pitched, absurdity of target (and publisher) punctured with a minimum of muss and fuss.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:44AMTuesday, May 14, 2013
Any American arts critic worth his or her salt is part of a bohemian fringe, is aware of the political resonance of their reviews, and is dedicated to sparking serious dialogue about arts an…
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 04:43PMSaturday, May 11, 2013
The Zeitgeist Stage Company provocatively lives up to its name by taking audiences into the netherworld of horrific violence via a powerful production of Simon Stephens' drama "Punk Rock."
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 03:25PMThursday, May 9, 2013
Something emotional (perhaps even passionate) whirls underneath the well-worn modernist pieties of "Old-Fashioned Prostitutes," though not to the point of disrupting the daffy routine.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 02:01PMFriday, May 3, 2013
Criticism is vital to our time because it is a form of witnessing, testimony to the possibility that the richness and joy of the arts can be articulated in ways that invite intellectual cont…
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 12:31PMTuesday, April 30, 2013
Susanne M. Sklar's study is the best exploration of William Blake's miraculously bewildering masterpiece that I know of — thoughtful, scholarly, imaginative, and supremely sympathetic to t…
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 10:30AMSaturday, April 27, 2013
A system in which no one takes responsibility for editorial decisions works out great for the inside gamers, like Nathaniel Rich.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:39AMWednesday, April 24, 2013
Nowhere do I say in the piece that The Arts Fuse is all good and everyone else is all bad.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 04:19PMMonday, April 22, 2013
According to our docile mainstream media, Boston enjoys a perpetual Renaissance -- the merchandise in the cultural window is always worth buying. And that predictability makes for very borin…
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:43AMWednesday, April 17, 2013
Ballet program administrators in Cuba will be happy I'm telling the true story in "Secundaria," the one they're not allowed to tell themselves.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 04:02PMMonday, April 15, 2013
Recent changes in Boston's media landscape do not bode well for substantial coverage of the arts. What do those in the arts world think about what is happening?
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 03:36PMMr. Selfridge drives me nuts because the storyline, the rise of a mercantile empire, calls for edgy Darwinian conflict rather than paternal benevolence sprinkled with layers of powered soa…
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:29AMSaturday, April 6, 2013
All is not well with the classical music scene in Boston. Boston's Church of St. John the Evangelist has pulled funding from its Wednesday Concert Series.
SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 12:26AM 
