Macbeth (Shakespeare)

Another energetic and lively Elm Shakespeare production in Edgerton Park. I saw one with T&K my first summer in New Haven, and I've tried to ensure that I've seen each one since then.

Highly recommended.

Dido and Aeneas (Mark Morris after Henry Purcell)

My fourth immersion in this glorious fusion of music and dance, and once again, I see and hear what I've missed before.

Highly Recommended

The Train Driver (Athol Fugard)

A moving exploration of responsibility and guilt, of regret and redemption, and ultimately of forgiveness and forgiveness once again. Fine performances of a conundrum particular to post-apartheid South Africa but easy to universalize to any peoples anywhere.

Selvish (Carly Flint)

By re-imagining the Adam and Eve myth through the lens of Koranic additions and revisions, as well as modern conceptions of human love, this play adds Flint's voice to the voices of other, more established poets & playwrights--I'm thinking particularly of Zimmerman, Hughes, and Ruhl--who've taken ancient myths as their source text but made them so much more.

Excellent performances under strong direction.

Recommend.

The Secret in the Wings (Zimmerman)

I had high hopes for this production: I'm of fan of Yale Summer Cabaret, and Zimmerman seemed like the perfect playwright for the group.

Big disappointment, and I find that YSC was the primary source of that disappointment.

Do not recommend.

Union Square (Nancy Savoca)

Here's a movie I found it difficult to create any distance from. The two sisters, played in strong performances by Mira Sorvino and Tammy Blanchard, negotiate their past and their different responses to it. Though the film is primarily set in a tidy, upwardly-mobile apartment, it portrays the sisters' lives as tottering on chaos.

Recommend.

Hope Springs (David Frankel)

An all-too-familiar (though not on screen) story of faded love in a long-term marriage. Full of humor. Endearing acting by Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, and Steve Carell.

(Set in Omaha, NE and Maine, but filmed in CT.)

Recommend.

Ruby Sparks (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)

Perhaps we're the only regular movie-goers who didn't see American Pie. And because we can see American Pie veteran actors in other films without carrying over any prejudice from the earlier movie, I more and more believe that's to our benefit--and in this case, Paul Dano's.

Clever, entertaining film based on the Pygmalion myth--and, according to the two young women in front of us--their lives.

Recommend.

Killer Joe (William Friedkin)

I remember when--it must be close to a dozen years ago--Mike saw Tracey Lett's play, Killer Joe, in New York with a friend. I hadn't been able to go, and on his return said it was just as well. As much as he had liked the play, he was certain I would not have.

He was right. I wouldn't have liked it then.

Though I don't believe I become desensitized to violence in the subsequent years, I have learned to disassociate from what's happening on the screen. And in this particular film, that's a good trick to be able to play.

Like so many Lett's dramatic works, Killer Joe is a psychological study, this time in crime-ridden, drug-addled, intelligence-challenged trailer park in Texas. Though he sometimes overplays the stereotypes, by and large he hits the target.

Fantastic performances by Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church, and Gina Gorshen. And Matthew McConaughey owes the role if Texas lawman.

The scene with the fried chicken leg is a bizarre as any on screen.

Highly recommended: with the caveat that the NC-17 rating is for the graphic violence and explicit rape.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Superb film whose primary trope is the red herring.

Highly recommended.