Arts

Calming and exciting

Bartlett Wright catches the wave; Washington's gothic romance
“This is the largest height outdoor mural that I’ve painted, and I’ve been painting murals for 25 years." Amy Bartlett Wright i s talking about the four-story-tall crashing waves she’s painting on the wall above Coastway Community Bank’s parking lot at 180 Washington St. in Providence.

By: GREG COOK | June 18, 2013

The play's not the thing

Epic's meandering trip to 'Fire Island'
Historian Charles L. Mee is also a playwright with a lengthy list of works to his credit, but he could more accurately be called an anti-playwright. Having declared that “there is no such thing as an original play,” he has proceeded, typically, to assemble and reconstruct theater pieces from found texts.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | June 18, 2013

One day at a time

Mixed Magic's 'The House In Providence'
As someone says toward the end of this intriguing social-study kitchen-sink drama, it’s easy to get along with people you don’t deal with every day, who don’t know you inside out and can make you feel terrible with just a look.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | June 18, 2013

Upstairs, downstairs

Trinity Rep's 'House & Garden' doubles your pleasure
What a clever idea. Use the same cast and adjacent sets, and develop characters and their stories into two plays that stand alone but also offer the bonus of familiarity to audience members who see them both.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | June 12, 2013

The buzz of creativity

RHD-RI's 'Artless'; Gilheeney and Hastings at Candita Clayton
Joe Pastore is a “Juggalo,” according to his brief artist biography for the exhibit “Artless: Rhode Island Outsider Art with RHD-RI” 186 Carpenter St. Gallery in Providence. His bio supports this by including a photo of him in a hoodie professing his allegiance to the horror-hip-hop rap duo Insane Clown Posse.

By: GREG COOK | June 11, 2013

Unsettling slices of life

Anne Pasquale gets under 'BOB''s skin
' BOB: Blessed Be the Dysfunction That Binds ' is about Anne Pasquale’s experiences growing up with a “special needs person” with schizophrenic tendencies, a balancing act of love and trepidation. Bob, you see, could be violent.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | June 11, 2013

Buildings people love to hate

Viera Levitt looks at Brutalism
Viera Levitt looks at Brutalism

By: GREG COOK | June 04, 2013

And justice for all?

2nd Story and Mixed Magic's 'The Exonerated'
Don't ever get arrested for a serious crime. That's one of the infuriating lessons learned from ' The Exonerated ,' a drama of justice delayed written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | June 04, 2013

A few flights of fancy

'New Mythologies II' at Candita Clayton; 'Peaked' at Craftland
The ladies have it under control in Xander Marro's puppet dioramas exhibited in the group show "New Mythologies II" at Candita Clayton Gallery.

By: GREG COOK | May 29, 2013

Swimming with sharks

The Wilbury Group's 'Threepenny Opera'
Despite its scathing critique of the excesses of capitalism, The Threepenny Opera has fascinated even investment bankers since its creation in 1928. Perhaps especially investment bankers, seeing that it centers around a dark "hero" with the morals of an alley cat and the luck of one with nine lives.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 29, 2013

No method to this madness

Epic's 'Alice in Wonderland'
Clever idea, setting Lewis Carroll's surreal Alice books in an insane asylum. But like many simple creative notions that are roiling with complexity under the surface, it can be woefully difficult to pull off.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 29, 2013

A really big show!

The 'RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition 2013'
This showcase of tomorrow's-art-stars-today is both invigorating and overwhelming, with work by 194 students.

By: GREG COOK | May 21, 2013

Clothes make the man

'Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion' at the RISD Museum
What does it mean to be a man? That's the question at the heart of this smart, sumptuous exhibit — one of the best shows in the region this year.

By: GREG COOK | May 13, 2013

Remixing Shakespeare

Brown/Trinity Rep MFA's 'Romeo and Juliet'
From music to costumes to inserted interludes of dance and mad poetry, this staging is vivacious.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 13, 2013

A close encounter

Mixed Magic's absorbing 'Zoo Story'
The set-up couldn't be more straightforward: two strangers are having a conversation in New York's Central Park. Correspondingly, the set couldn't be more simple: a park bench in front of tall color photographs of its bucolic backdrop.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 13, 2013

Sour and dour souls

The Gamm's 'Beauty Queen of Leenane'
Some people are brittle and dry as tinder, but they don't have the sense to not play with matches. The two women at the dangerous center of Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane could blaze up at any moment, and we know that one or both will by the end. Each is filled with so much pent-up hatred that spontaneous combustion seems a distinct possibility.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 07, 2013

Fools in love

Tennessee Williams's 'The Rose Tattoo' at 2nd Story
Taking place on the hot Louisiana Gulf Coast, Tennessee Williams's The Rose Tattoo is steamy in more than one way, as human passions boil off repressed emotions.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 07, 2013

Merry pranksters

The Bruce High Quality Foundation at Brown
Parked out front of Brown University's gray modernist Granoff Center on a recent sunny morning were one of those 15-foot-tall inflatable rats that unions install in front of businesses they're protesting and a limousine sloppily painted to resemble a yellow and black school bus.

By: GREG COOK | May 07, 2013

Altered images

Jacqueline Frole's 'Family Room' at AS220; J.A. Segal at Craftland
Among the handsome Washington Street storefronts of AS220's renovated Mercantile Block building, with their neo-old-timey signs, is the residents' entrance to the building. It is against AS220's religion to leave any space empty that can be filled with art. So the lobby is the AS220 Resident Gallery, which occupants of the building take turns filling with their stuff.

By: GREG COOK | April 30, 2013

A tangled web

Paula Hunter's 'Away From Home'
In an ongoing series of monologues that began with Paula Hunter's Home Alone more than five years ago, this comic commentator on life as she (and we) know it is currently presenting Away From Home.

By: JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | April 30, 2013