Theater Thursday: The Color Purple

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One of my favorite films that I remember was The Color Purple. Heart-wrenching and universally loved, The Color Purple isn’t really about the color purple. It’s about the trials and tribulations of black women in the turn-of-the-century south, and how they conquered over all the abuse, the poverty, and the lack of anything resembling a life. The Color Purple received a whopping 11 Oscar nominations and won precisely zero. It was directed by Steven Speilberg. The movie tells the life story of Celie, played by … Continue reading →

Sight Unseen, A Play by Donald Margulies

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Jonathan Waxman (Ben Shenkman), whose name is surely meant to suggest a wax man, has come to a Norfolk, England farmhouse to visit Patricia (Laura Linney), the girlfriend he threw out of his life 15 years earlier. Now an international art market star preparing a retrospective installation in London, Jonathan may have made his sentimental journey for an unsentimental reason:  When he and Patricia first met, he’d done a portrait of her that would fill a gap in his about-to-open show. Perhaps he’s thinking that … Continue reading →

Theater Thursday: Inherit The Wind

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Inherit the Wind (1960) portrays, in partly fictionalized form, the famous and dramatic courtroom “Monkey Trial” battle (in the sultry summer of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee) between two famous lawyers (Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan) who volunteered to heatedly argue both sides of the case (over 12 days, including two weekends). Its story centers around the issue of evolution vs. creationism, in the prosecution of 24 year-old Dayton High School mathematics teacher and sports coach – and substitute science teacher – John T. Scopes … Continue reading →

Theater Thursday: Sophie’s Choice

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The sunny streets of Brooklyn, just after World War II. A young would-be writer named Stingo (Peter MacNicol) shares a boarding house with beautiful Polish immigrant Sophie (Meryl Streep) and her tempestuous lover, Nathan (Kevin Kline); their friendship changes his life. This bestselling novel by William Styron was made into an unforgetably  well made film in 1982. Director Alan J. Pakula (All the President’s Men) provides a steady, intelligent path into the harrowing story of Sophie, whose flashback memories of the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp form … Continue reading →

Theater Thursday 03/03/08: Ordinary People

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Ordinary People is an Academy Award-winning 1980 American motion picture drama and the directorial debut of Robert Redford. The story is about the disintegration of an upper middle class  family inLake Forest, Illinois, following the death of the oldest son. It was based upon the 1976 novel by Judith Guest. The film was a critical and commercial success, winning that year’s Academy Award for Best Picture and various other major film awards. The Jarretts, a family from Chicago’s North Shore, try to return to normal … Continue reading →

Theater Thursday 03/17/08: The Four Seasons

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The Four Seasons is a 1981 romantic comedy film starring Alan Alda, Carol Burnett, Len Cariou, Sandy Dennis, Rita Moreno, Jack Weston and Bess Armstrong.  The story revolves around three couples who take vacations together during each of the seasons.  After this pattern has been established, Nick (Cariou) leaves his wife Anne (Dennis) for a much younger woman, Ginny (Armstrong).  Nick then brings Ginny on the couples’ shared vacations, causing the other two couples to be uncomfortable with the situation.  I think this movie is … Continue reading →

Theater Thursday: The Chosen

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One of the most interesting novels I have read growing up was The Chosen by Chaim Potok. The book was made into a film in 1981. It was directed by Jeremy Kagan, starring Maximilian Schell, Rod Steiger, Robby Benson.  The story begins in 1944 with a softball game in a Jewish section of Brooklyn, New York between students from two different schools. Each team represents a different Jewish sect with a different level of Jewish observance. Danny Saunders represents the Hasidic sect led by his father, … Continue reading →

Theater Thursday 10/02/08: Frankie and Johnny

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I have always enjoyed this movie. Not just because Al Pacino’s in it, but I always liked the story… Frankie and Johnny is a 1991 American motion picture. The original music score was composed by Marvin Hamlisch. The film was marketed with the tagline “You never choose love. Love chooses you.” Terrence McNally’s screenplaywas adapted from his 1987 off-Broadway play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, although it differed dramatically from the original, which had only two characters and was set in Frankie’s … Continue reading →

Theater Thursday 05/29/08: Valley of the Dolls

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Valley of the Dolls is a 1967 American drama film based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Jacqueline Susann. The film, which was produced by David Weisbart and directed by Mark Robson, received a great deal of publicity during its production. Upon release it was a commercial success, though universally panned by critics. It was re-released in 1969 following the murder of star Sharon Tate (she was murdered by the Charles Manson gang while she was pregnant with director Roman Polanski’s child), … Continue reading →

Theater Thursday 04/28/08: The Search for Bridey Murphy

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“The Search for Bridey Murphy” was a film made in 1956. Bridey Murphy is the name of a woman that U.S. housewife Virginia Tighe (April 27,1923 – July 12, 1995) claimed to have been in her previous life. In 1952, Colorado businessman and amateur hypnotist Morey Bernstein put housewife Virginia Tighe of Pueblo, Colorado in a trance that sparked off startling revelations about Tighe’s alleged past life as a 19th-century Irishwoman and her rebirth in the United States 59 years later. Bernstein used a technique … Continue reading →