Month: March 2016

RI’s Finest: Reviewing RISCA’s Fine Arts Fellowship Exhibition at Bannister

When attending a gallery, I often think of one of the catchphrases of Brian Sewell, Britain’s latest, greatest and perhaps most infamous art critic. The words are radically simple, a terse but not unkind rejoinder against the sterility and bourgeois high-mindedness of the Chelsea and SoHo scenes: “Provoke me.” This wish for provocation is not […]

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Phillipe & Jorge’s Cool, Cool World: Screwing the Pooch 38 Studios Style

We are going to wear out the memory of poor old Claude Rains, but like his Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca, Phillipe and Jorge are shocked – shocked! – to find that there was fraud involved by leaders of the state’s Economic Development Corporation (now RI Commerce) and Wells Fargo in regard to the 38 […]

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Sans Everything Is a Delightfully Quirky Close Encounter of the Theatrical Kind

Not five minutes into the new “sci-fi” play Sans Everything, a very lanky, very nude and very bearded man rolls onstage after being mysteriously birthed via a very industrial looking curtain. Wordlessly, he takes his first staggering breath and starts to acclimate himself to this strange new world where the only sound is the repetitive […]

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A Violently Funny Skull in Connemara at The Gamm Theatre

Playwright Martin McDonagh has often been described as “one of today’s most important living Irish playwrights,” a fact that casts a certain air of solemn gravitas and formality to the proceedings. That is, unless you have seen Gamm’s latest black-as-pitch comic triumph A Skull in Connemara, an absurdist and endlessly fascinating play that lifts a […]

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Frank Underwood vs Donald Trump: Who’s More Evil?

Netflix’s “House of Cards” season 4 premiered today, and it got me thinking about Frank Underwood. He seems downright charming and harmless compared to the rogues gallery of Batman villains gracing the Republican debate stage, especially Donald Trump. I began to ponder, who is more evil — Donald Trump or the fictional character Frank Underwood, […]

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