Year: 2005

It’s hard to imagine these days, but during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together peacefully in a region that extended from North Africa to Spain. What’s more, they colluded to create medieval Andalusia, an intellectual and tolerant society that lit up the Dark Ages of Europe with rich food, art, music, and dance. The peace was too good to last, of course, but at least someone thought to save the dances. Renowned Algerian dancer Amel Tafsout joins the Jawaahir Dance Company’s Cassandra Shore to recreate the sensual and expressive dances of the Andalous period (1239-1402), accompanied by music from Morocco and North Africa. Expect a gorgeous set from local Saudi Arabian-born artist Hend al-Mansour. 1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-340-1725; www.southerntheater.org

Hannibal Lecter didn’t give his costume department half the fun that Audrey II, the avocado-crossed-with-a-venus-flytrap puppet-plant, does. Little Shop of Horrors is a black American musical par excellence, pushed over the top by its stars, the bloodthirsty plant and Dr. Orin, the sadistic dentist clad in black leather. (His wicked anthem to his profession still maxes out our camp-o-meter.) The wink-nudge, blues, jazz, and pop-infused score is studded with goodies like the bop-shoo-bop “Little Shop” prologue, and the smoldering torch song “Suppertime.” 910 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 651-989-5151; www.state-orpheum.com

Old television stars don’t die; they go to the Guthrie. We greatly enjoyed Patrick Stewart onstage there a few years back. Now more big names from the small screen, Courtney B. Vance and Angela Bassett, star in His Girl Friday, which John Guare has adapted from both Hollywood’s screwball romance and the original play The Front Page. Real-life spouses Vance (of Law & Order fame) and Bassett (who, yes, is an accomplished film actress but has also appeared in The Cosby Show, Alias, the title role in The Rosa Parks Story, and a slew of other TV shows) play former spouses and fellow journalists in a thirties-era Chicago newsroom. The play manages to both savage the tabloid press and pay loving tribute to the tough-talking journalists of old, and all the fast talking and physical gags make it a performer’s dream—no wonder it’s a perennial favorite for revivals. 612-377-2224; www.guthrietheater.org

Fame-hungry classical musicians and their handlers have tried all sorts of tricks in attempts to establish coveted “crossover” appeal. For violinist Nigel Kennedy, it was spiky hair and Jimi Hendrix covers. For a host of nubile female players, it’s been soft-core photo sessions. But Christopher O’Riley has made his leap across the musical divide with taste and aplomb via his obsession with Radiohead: The pianist transcribed the band’s complex, challenging music for solo piano as only a true fan could, and the result—achingly beautiful, emotionally resonant—has made O’Riley the coolest classical player around. Of course, he also excels in the standard repertoire—his main event here is a rousing program dubbed “The Mighty Rachmaninoff” with the, uh, house band—but his late-night Radiohead recitals (11 p.m. on this evening) have been transporting the in-crowd to a state of hushed wonder. 612-371-5656; www.minnesotaorchestra.org

Sometimes I get sick and tired of writing. Especially when I’m facing a slew of deadlines. So I lie on the couch feeling sorry for myself. Or, if can keep my wits about me, I bury myself under the covers in my attic bedroom with a good book. If I were a society woman of times past, I could “take to my bed” without shame. But as it is, this habit remains a perplexing but enjoyable non-solution to an overabundant work life.

Or is it? Mightn’t I put those hours to good, productive use just in time for the idle days of summer by whipping up a recommended reading list based on my “research”? It’ll be like inviting you to my place for iced tea, where then you could enjoy the one reflexive activity I find irresistible when I walk into a friend’s house for the first time—snooping the bookshelves. Or the extensive vinyl record collection, like the one I was recently amazed by at a co-worker’s party. When I asked for some Cat Stevens, he said, “Name the album.” When someone else wanted Billy Bragg, he was right on it. And his indulgence of an especially emphatic request for Neil Diamond drove only two guests to leave early.

My music collection would tell you mostly that I am lame and stuck with the Indigo Girls in their prime. But my books, even just those of the last twelve months, might add up to something. First, there’s the Essential Rumi and Rumi: the Book of Love, plus True Love by Thich Nhat Hanh, a slim volume you can easily polish off in a sitting, but which, like Rumi, merits innumerable re-reads. In fact, there are twenty books in my “current” stack that have the word “love” somewhere in the title, not counting Breathing Together, Richard Kehl’s collection of quotes on the mystery of love.(Cut me some slack. I already told you I was planning a wedding this summer!) Once you got past the love books piled on my shelves and end tables, you might ask why so many books on kids and parenting, but then you’d remember that I have six kids, teach fifth grade, and used to edit a parenting magazine. You’d skim past all the writing and teaching books (though I have to say that Damn! Why Didn’t I Write That? has been both useful and inspiring), and then you’d start trying to find the ones that could tell you something you didn’t already know.

And that’s when you’d see Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin. This harrowing novel of motherhood gone horrifically awry is indescribable and magnificent, although there are days I wish I had never laid eyes on it. Even now, a year since I first read it, it haunts me. Particularly the last chapter, when the author dares to allow the graphically unthinkable to happen to a child who reminded me too much of my own sunny and pure youngest. The book is a carefully constructed suspense story, despite the fact that you know from the beginning that Kevin eventually commits a school massacre; therefore, I won’t give anything further away. Suffice it to say that while many writers have attempted to explain what might drive a teenager to kill, Shriver’s book cuts to the imaginary chase unlike any other. The writing is as intense as it is intelligent, as the story unfolds from the perspective of Eva, the well-educated and extremely articulate mother of an “unsavory son.” Dubbed an “underground feminist hit,” this complex and wrenching novel rivals or surpasses Map of the World for its unflinching dissection of the darkest familial—and in this case, cultural—tragedies.

After you let Shriver beat you to a pulp, refresh yourself with The Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken, who is a plainspoken genius. This eccentric tale of a 1950s romance between a spinster librarian on Cape Cod and a boy afflicted with giantism was superb and stunning.

As for my own summer reading, I just started The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris, a book that my former mother-in-law passed along because it reminded her of me, and I have to find out why. Next, I’ll turn to a newish Anne Tyler, The Amateur Marriage, because even though I know it’ll be a downer, I’ve read and admired all her other books, and apparently, I love sad things. Finally, I’m looking forward to Ann Patchett’s Truth and Beauty, a memoir of her friendship with the late Lucy Grealy, whose Autobiography of a Face was the first and most unforgettable memoir I have ever read. Upcoming deadlines? No problem. I’m fully prepared to procrastinate.

The sexy Varsity opened this spring in hopes of being all things to all artistes: coffee shop for socializing or solitary pondering; stage for emoting or escapism; bar for all of the above. Now it’s staging a play perfectly suited to such funky and flexible environs. The Artificial Jungle, a film-noir send-up by Charles Ludlum (The Mystery of Irma Vep), has its female roles played by exquisite men in drag. The lead character is the vampy Roxanne Nurdinger, whose husband brings to their marriage not only that surname, but a meddling mom. When Roxanne meets a fascinating stranger, she concocts the ugliest way possible to get out of her dull situation. 1308 Fourth St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-604-0222; www.varsitytheater.org ??

Lanesboro, Minnesota’s Commonweal Theatre Company is known for mounting quality productions of challenging works, in what is apparently part of a local tradition. During Prohibition area men came in from the fields to stage a period melodrama—dressed as women. Playwright Jordan Harrison’s Act a Lady (originally commissioned by Commonweal) brings humor and intrigue to the story of that gender-bending segment of Minnesota history. In his play about a play, women take the men’s parts, and the experience of trying on another sexual identity raises passions that didn’t often get aired nearly a century ago. Or so we like to think—Act a Lady may show us otherwise. Hennepin Center for the Arts, 528 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis, www.illusiontheater.org

History on the hoof. Frankly, we have our doubts that the two-year makeover that’s about to begin on Lake Street is the kind of “help” that place needs. By 2008, the county promises us that one of Minneapolis’ most vibrant and ethnically diverse commercial corridors will boast a more genteel streetscape, along with pothole-free traffic lanes. But before all that happens, In the Heart of the Beast, long a fixture on Lake Street, will celebrate the old road’s history and spirit with a series of walking tours-as-performances. Destinations include landmarks like MeGusta and Ingebretsen’s. Along the way, puppetry installations tell stories about the street in all its guises: wildlife corridor (yes, really!), Native American trading path, cruising strip, and starting place for successive waves of immigrants. A shrine at Gustavus Adolphus Hall, the beautiful edifice that was gutted by fire last year, pays homage to all Lake Street has lost—and yet stands to lose. 1500 E. Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-721-2535; www.hobt.org

Rude humor is the hallmark of a good summer camp film, and this parody mines all the classic elements of the genre: sexual frustration, bodily functions, and the struggle of the geek to stay alive in the Lord of the Flies-like societal breakdown that inevitably occurs when former Saturday Night Live stars take preteens into the wilderness for a vacation. Janeane Garofalo and Molly Shannon lead the debauchery at a Jewish summer camp. Bad eighties haircuts and music help make this an even guiltier pleasure.??