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Broadway Really Does Come to Boston with "Doubt" |
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Feb 18, 2007 at 12:00 AM |
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Sun.. Feb. 18 Economical, forceful, and, yes, full of doubt. Those are the thoughts you walk away with after seeing Tony Award-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt," which wraps up at the Colonial Theatre Sunday Feb. 18. It stars ART vet Cherry Jones, reprising her Tony Award-winning Broadway role. Set in a Catholic school/church in 1964, it pits Jones' Sister Aloysius against Chris McGarry's Father Flynn. She is all rules-and-regs - "Innocence is a form of laziness," she says - made of stone, quite possibly the caricature of the Mother Superior of the time. (Lord knows, we met a few in our day.) Her naive nun-teacher Sister James says of the students, "They all seem to be terrified of you." "Yes, that's how it works," replies Sister Aloysisus. But she's not quite that hardened. In her stern nature, perhaps, she's the Catholic equivalent of the Army D.I. It's the way she shows she cares, the way she builds character. To complicate matters a bit, she says she doesn't like secular Christmas music, but listens on an earphone to a confiscated radio - news, you see, not music. She also was married, but her husband was killed in World War II. And, despite her apparent coldness, she's taken an interest in the only black kid in this Irish-Italian-American school, a kid who's been abused by his father and maybe Father Fl ynn, who coaches basketball and wants to modernize the church. All the signs she sees point to abuse; when she finally raises those signs to Father Flynn, his protests ring ... sort of true. Or maybe, as she suggests, he's been in denial so long - he has been shuttled from parish to parish for unknown reasons - it's second-nature to defend himself that way. He protests "My reputation is at stake!" She responds "Your work in the community should be discontinued." He says the child needed a friend; she says his benevolence was not "a sensation of virtue." We doubt her; we doubt him. Darkness descends. And we leave the theater with those thoughts: What is reality? Sure, Father Flynn probably had relations with the child - that motif would dovetail with what we now sadly know about the Catholic Church, especially then. Yet, nothing has been proven. In the playwright's preface given to the press, Shanley asks, "Have you ever held a position in an argument past the point of comfort? Have you ever defended a way of life you were on the verge of exhausting?" You'll leave the Colonial with your mind ablaze with conundrums and contradictions. Doubt. After we saw the play we talked with McGarry ... |
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How much can you take? Bad movies, all night long ... |
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Feb 17, 2007 at 12:00 AM |
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Sat. Feb. 17 We're pretty certain there are more than a few Ph.D dissertations on schlock and why we (sometimes) love it. Schlock music, schlock novels, schlock music. Stuff that's so bad it's good. There are probably lengthy discussions as to whether the cre ators of certain schlock knew they were creating schlock or whether they thought they were making art. We'll just dangle those thoughts and tell you the Brattle Theatre is staging their first-ever "Schlock-Around-the-Clock" movie marathon, starting Saturday Feb. 17 at 9:30 p.m. This endurance test dips back 70 years to "The Terror of Tiny Town," with midget cowboys and goes through 1990's "Troll 2," which is actually not a sequel and called by Brattle programmer Ned Hinkle "the 'Citizen Kane' of bad movies." There are nine movies in all - this wraps up around 12:30 on Sunday, and you'll see tramps, monsters, sex-crazed teenagers and, of course, a deranged Shelly Winters. It costs $20 and the Brattle promises free snacks and trivia contests. Bring your own ephedrine, Coca-Cola, Starbucks-loaded jug or whatever gets you through the night.
40 Brattle St., Cambridge, 617-876-2021 brattlefilm.org |
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It's Lincoln's Birthday: Celebrate with the Stinkin' Lincolns |
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Feb 17, 2007 at 12:00 AM |
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Sat. Feb. 17 We don't think rock 'n' roll is a joke, but we sure like a good rock 'n' roll joke. Like the Stinkin' Lincolns. The Boston-based band plays exactly one show a year - this  is their 9th year - and this year they'll be at the Abbey Lounge Sat. Feb. 17. These guys are punk-rock/glam-rock schooled semi-geezers, who will all be doing their best to look like that guy on the five dollar bill. They'll be playing songs by the Sex Pistols, Damned, Cheap Trick, Alice Cooper, AC/DC, Buzzcocks, David Bowie, Dead Boys, New York Dolls and others. For the record, the band is composed of singer Mary Todd Lincoln (aka Todd Spahr, ex Cavedogs), drummer Ringo Lincoln (aka Jim Janota, ex-Bags, Upper Crust), guitarisat Lancelot Lincoln (aka Charles Hanson (Rock Bottom), guitarist Abraham Vigoda Lincoln (aka Johnny Black, Johnny Black Trio) and, of course, bassist Hot Rod Lincoln (aka Joe Klompus, from Kay Hanley's band among others). Opening the night at 9 is Meaty Beefy Big and Bouncy, which you just know covers the Who - that was roughly the title of a Who best-of album years ago. The Other Girls are on at 10 and then it's Lincoln time at 11. Tickets: $9.
3 Beacon St., Somerville (Inman Square), abbeylounge.com
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Chandler Travis and friends: Rockin' for New Orleans |
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Feb 17, 2007 at 12:00 AM |
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Sat. Feb. 17 Chandler Travis - that jack of all genres and Cape Cod wise-acre - has a penchant for charitable works of music. He shepherds "Shaun & Suzi's 14th Annual Mardi Gras Ball" at T.T. the Bear's Saturday Feb. 17. You'll get not just T ravis but assorted pals like Willie Loco Alexander, Andrea Gillis, Dennis Brennan, Sal Clemente (from Ultrasonic Orchestra), Bo Barringer (from the Collisions), the Steamy Bohemians and Bourbon Princess. How will they fit all those people into an 8:30 p.m. - 1 a.m. time slot? Don't worry, they'll do it. It'll cost you $12, and you'll feel better knowing the proceeds go to the New Orleans Musicians Clinic.
10 Brookline St., Cambridge, 617-492-0082 ttthebears.com
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Norman Mailer weighs in on Adolf Hitler: Could be bloody ... |
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Feb 15, 2007 at 12:00 AM |
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Thurs. Feb. 15 We heard Norman Mailer speak at a lecture once and we were transfixed by this literary lion. This was probably 20 years ago, and, even then, we were thinking Mailer, though pugnacious and combative as always, was in the twilight of hi s career. Nope. At 83, he's back with "The Castle in the Forest," his first major novel in more than a decade. His job as a novelist this time? Exploring the evil of one Adolf Hitler, who occupies a slightly lower rung in hell than, say, Gary Gilmore. Mailer's narrator is Dieter, a mysterious SS man/devil who takes us back to Hilter's birth. In the New York Times, Lee Siegel writes, "There is no weary celebration of the demonic here, no facile declaration of evil's universal latency ... Mailer has never had sympathy for the Devil, and he has none here." Of course, we wonder if the world needs yet another book about Hitler. But if there's going to be one, why not from Mailer? The guy has earned our respect, attention and ire for half a century. He should do one of those ads for the new AARP that suggest aging is in the mind. Oh, and at 477 pages, this ranks of modest length in Mailer's world. You can hear Mailer read for $3 at Congregational United Church of Christ in Harvard Square Thursday Feb. 15 at 6:30 p.m.
11 Garden St., Cambridge, 617-661-1515 harvardbookstore.com
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