One Flea Spare (Naomi Wallace)

Sylvia (A. R. Gurney)

Eric Ting is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors. Though I cannot imagine the tedium of reading this script, Ting has brought life and energy to it. Built upon the conceit that we over-anthropomorphize our canine pets, the plays features a dog played by a female actor. Erica Sullivan brings believability and humor to the role.

Recommend.

Mark Morris Dance Group (BAM)

We almost let fatigue, tight schedules, and bad weather keep us home. I'm so glad we braved the chilly rain. The performance was enchanting and well worth grading exams down and back to Brooklyn.

The evening opened with "Behemoth," a dance without music, without sound, except the sound of the dancers' feet on the stage. By stripping dance bare of aural elements, the performance foregrounds how much we depend upon music to help us understand and interpret dance. Without the musical component, each moment felt independent of all those before and after. Ultimately, I found myself in awe of the dancers' ability to remain hold the performance together without any musical cues.

The next piece, "Looky," was much less somber, more playful. Though much later than "Hard Nut," I was repeatedly reminded of that parody. (I am very intrigued by Kyle Gann's "Studies for Disklavier.")

Finally, the world premier of "Socrates," set of Erik Satie's cantata, "Socrate," was spellbinding in its elegance and profundity.

Highly Recommended.

Leo Kottke (Seattle, WA)

I was able to attend this fine Leo Kottke concert after I snagged the final available ticket. Mr. Penultimate Ticket sat next to me, and we gloated in our good fortune. Through pure luck, my seat was center of the fifth row. And in a small auditorium, that meant I could see that his hands were arthritic and not moving as gracefully as they once did. Nevertheless, the sound was as fine and distinctive as ever.

The Last Station (Michael Hoffman)

Presents the final years of Leo Tolstoys life as a standoff between his titled wife and Tolstoy's egalitarian hanger-ons. Excellent performances by Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer.

Recommend.

Avatar (James Cameron)

I found Avatar to be an immensely fascinating movie for its imaginative creation of another humanoid civilization on an earth-like planet. I found it thuddish and clunking in how it imagined future humans and the earth. By and large, it held my attention through most of the three hours, and I took off my 3-D glasses to check my watch only twice.

Recommend.

The Messenger (Oren Moverman)

I have found myself drawn to cinematic accounts of our current wars and the ways they are shaping an entire generation of young men and women. Though not a perfect film, The Messenger is a powerful examination of damage and resilience.

Highly recommended.

Simon Boccanegro (Verdi)

Fine production of Verdi's achingly beautiful opera, featuring Placido Domingo's Met debut as a baritone.

Highly recommend.

Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)

We went to this movie on a whim, without seeing any previews or reading an reviews. And that's just the perfect way to see the movie. So anything I say here can be gleamed from the first five minutes.

The film follows a few days in the life of 15-year-old Mia (astonishingly played by Katie Jarvis). Disaffected and looking for anyway to escape her disengaged mother and their tight living quarters in public housing, she initially looks to hip-hop dancing as her way out.

As sympathetic as the film is of Mia's plight, the film's nearly claustophobic focus on the deadening (and drunken) world of the underclass living in subsidized housing provides an unflinching indictment of the world wrought by nineteenth-century industrialization and twentieth-century social policy.

Highly recommend.