Arts

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

Clandestine couplings

Epic stages Pinter's time-twisting 'Betrayal'
Although prolific British playwright Harold Pinter directed much of his professional attention to the outer world of political affairs, he focused it most narrowly in a little play about more intimate affairs. ' Betrayal' charts the gradual emotional changes of three people as they go through their dances of deception over several years.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 01, 2013

In the city

Neal Walsh and Scott Lapham at 186 Carpenter
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Providence art scene is how the city itself has been such a rich subject. A decade ago, the city became a galvanizing topic as artists fought to protect the old mills that served as their homes and studios from demolition — with mixed success. But lately, the community's industrial architecture itself has attracted artists' attention.

By: GREG COOK | April 23, 2013

Something about 'Nothing'

Shakespeare's 'Much Ado' at URI
The University of Rhode Island Theatre is putting some of the Bard's favorite characters through their paces with determined affection. We get villainy as well as heroics, and wordplay instead of swordplay.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | April 23, 2013

The aftermath of atrocity

Wafaa Bilal and Daniel Heyman at Brown's Bell Gallery
From the ruins of the Iraq war emerges Wafaa Bilal's "The Ashes Series" and Daniel Heyman's "I Am Sorry It Is So Difficult To Start," on view at Brown University's Bell Gallery.

By: GREG COOK | April 16, 2013

A muddled mystery

'Curtains' gets the ol' college try at PC
Funny thing — and not in the good way — about a musical comedy that wants to be both an homage and a send-up. A perfect example of such imperfection is 'Curtains,' which is getting the good ol' college try at Providence College.

By: | April 16, 2013

Convent-ional wisdom

'Sister Act' rattles the rafters at PPAC
For all the fun we had along with Whoopi Goldberg in the movie ' Sister Act ,' the musical version is a delight all its own, as the show touring through Providence Performing Arts Center is demonstrating.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | April 10, 2013

The art of lust and life

'Reverse Cowgirl' at Yellow Peril Gallery
If Batman's dark latex costume-armor actually indicated his dark sexual appetites, Curtis Aric's Fluffer might be the motorcycle he'd ride — or at least keep in the Batcave for quiet kinky nights in.

By: GREG COOK | April 09, 2013

Land of make believe

Corey Grayhorse's 'Artificial Memories' at Craftland
"It's like getting to run away into a photograph," Corey Grayhorse tells me of her photos. "If I built it I could go there."

By: GREG COOK | April 03, 2013

Spring in their steps

Festival Ballet's 'Up Close On Hope'
Festival Ballet Providence's Up Close On Hope can be counted on to present new works and to spotlight new company members.

By: JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | April 02, 2013

A case of black and white

Ocean State plays Mamet's 'Race' card
It's inarguable that to some extent racism in America is a disease that the civil rights era did not completely inoculate this country against. The argument is about exactly what that extent has been, and David Mamet's provocative play Race explores that matter with fulminating energy and some insight.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | April 02, 2013

Private parts

Jessica Thurber, Sarah Beck, Thomas Morrissey at AS220
There are certain subjects like photos of gruesome death or cute puppies or disembodied vulvas where criticism struggles to keep up with the awesome force of the pictures.

By: GREG COOK | March 27, 2013

The Wilbury Group's 'Body Awareness'

Eye of the beholder
The male gaze. Men can think of it as merely admiring, complimentary. Woman may consider it creepy. Such is the annoying conflict between the two sub-species that Wilbury Group is examining with Annie Baker's 'Body Awareness.'

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | March 27, 2013