You drink chai and attend yoga classes, you dine on curries and masalas, you even watch the occasional Bollywood flick. But let’s admit it: There’s still an enormous amount of Indian culture that’s exotic to us Americans. Take Kathakali, the ancient and visually dazzling form of theater from the country’s southwestern region, which employs dance, … Read more
For all its whimsy, this production of King of Hearts might be tricky to laugh at. Latte Da artistic director Peter Rothstein made the bold move of casting performers from Interact Theatre, a troupe of artists with disabilities, to perform alongside his company members. That move isn’t unusual–Interact artists perform all the time–but in this … Read more
Seventeen years ago, I received a degree from the University of Michigan Law School, one of America’s top schools. My Harvard undergraduate degree opened doors at Michigan, and both of those degrees have opened other doors ever since–a fact that I have always appreciated. I have since learned that it’s our humanity, not paper credentials, … Read more
There’s a story in the good book, about a cup that is clean on the outside and dirty on the inside. The cup is golden, pretty to look at, and almost certainly the first one that you would take off the shelf. But you wouldn’t want to drink from it, because you’d probably get sick. … Read more
Being a proud Anglo-American, I have long been a fan of the BBC soap opera EastEnders. (We see it here on TPT–the Twin Cities are a hotbed of British TV fans.) Everyone on this show, set in East London, eventually sleeps with everyone else, and there is an alarmingly high incidence of accidental death, felonious … Read more
The doctor stared over her glasses and leaned closer. She caressed the stumps where Blueberry’s arm and leg had once been. This grandmotherly surgeon, Clare Erickson, might be our region’s most prominent dollologist, and at this moment she was clearly weighing Blueberry’s prospects. “Do you know what a morgue is?” she said to Lillie. Lillie … Read more
In its dedication to adapting literature for the stage, Hardcover Theater is usually narrative-driven. This production, however, is a hallucinogenic journey as told by Georg Trakl, a German soldier-poet who fought in and ultimately took his own life during World War I. Trakl’s dreamy, drug-induced imagery is reminiscent of Arthur Rimbaud, whom he admired, yet … Read more
Only a handful of North American operas have managed to muscle their way into a classic repertory already crowded with European works; count Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Bernstein’s Candide, and Nixon in China, by John Adams, among them. Imbued with the kind of quirkiness that only opera (and, arguably, the Nixons) can provide, Adams’s music, … Read more
“Laugh to keep from cryin’” was a maxim often employed by black vaudeville performers in the 1920s to endure racism, long hours, and atrocious pay, not to mention performing in humiliating productions. Things were even tougher on the traveling circuit, and yet amazingly, these vaudevillians still managed to bring warmth and quick-witted humor to audiences … Read more