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BILL RODRIGUEZ

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Mixed_Magic_list

Mixed Magic’s Moby Dick: Then and Now

A whale of a metaphor
Herman Melville's epic and innovative novel Moby-Dick , the linchpin of 19th- and 20th-century American literature, is quite the ambitious model for imitation.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  March 27, 2012
Soho_1_list

Review: SoHo

Funky and chic in Narragansett
When you walk in to SoHo, an elaborate panorama of Manhattan skyscrapers catches your eye above the bar.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  March 27, 2012
ADDAMS04_list

The Addams Family get altogether ooky at PPAC

A ghoulish love story
Musical comedies can sometimes be cartoonish, but rarely are they drawn from actual cartoons.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  March 21, 2012
Mourners_list

Trinity’s moving Mourners’ Bench

Life after death
You die, you're dead and buried. But if you survive a loved one's death, or anticipate soon having to, you shamble about wounded.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  March 21, 2012
boom_list

The Gamm’s boom is a matter of life and death

The end (or the beginning?)
If the end of the world were coming, how would you spend the time?
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  March 14, 2012
2nd-Story,-August_list

2nd Story’s riveting August: Osage County

Truth and consequences
Considering that the play begins and ends with depressing quotes by T.S. Eliot, Tracy Letts's August: Osage County is remarkably fun-filled.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  March 14, 2012
Marios_list

Review: Mario’s Risto/Bar

Excellent dining in Knightsville
We don't usually think of Mario's when we're passing through Knightsville.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  March 07, 2012
SparrowGrass3_list

Trinity Rep’s dysfunctional Sparrow Grass

Emotional wreckage
In "Three by Three in Rep," Trinity Repertory Company is taking on an especially ambitious project, cycling three world premieres in a demonstration of the juggling act that used to be common in this country and still is in Europe.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  March 07, 2012
Persimmon_list

Review: Persimmon

Perfection, earthbound and rarefied
As national press has informed us in recent years, Rhode Island has certainly, and deservedly, earned a reputation as one of the prime culinary hotspots in the country, so it has plenty of fine restaurants vying for of top honors.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  February 28, 2012
Avenue_Q_list

Courthouse’s Avenue Q is a monstrous delight

Oh the places you’ll go!
Think twice before you tell anybody to get real. You might create a monster. Or, in the case of Avenue Q , the Sesame Street -on-LSD Broadway musical, a monster hit since 2003.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  February 22, 2012
Merchant_list

Trinity’s delicately balanced Merchant of Venice

The light and the dark
The Merchant of Venice gives modern audiences a lot to think and talk about — including, we can forget, a surprising amount of comedy. But the main concern is it being such a head-shaking case study of the era's anti-Semitism.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  February 15, 2012
Rachel_Wallace_list

A supersized Mary Poppins at PPAC

The bitter and the sweet
There's no secret why the hit musical Mary Poppins has filled more than 9 million seats around the world over the last seven years.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  February 15, 2012
Cresta_list

Review: Cresta Bar & Ristorante

Diamond in the rough
Cresta Bar & Ristorante, the new restaurant in Pawtucket, is really classing up the place.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  February 15, 2012
PC-2-Tenor_list

A knee-slapping Lend Me a Tenor at PC

Hilarious high notes
As hilarious as the race for the Republican presidential nomination is, even that is no competition for Ken Ludwig's Lend Me a Tenor.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  February 01, 2012
Siena_list

Review: Siena

Close your eyes and it's Tuscany
I can't imagine that anyone returning from a visit to Tuscany fails to wax rhapsodic about the cuisine, perhaps as soon as the customs inspection.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  January 31, 2012
2nd-Story,-Take-Me-Out_list

2nd Story’s Take Me Out

A dramatic grand slam
Ironic, isn't it? To your ordinary man in the street or workplace, masculinity usually isn't an issue. Yet macho scale rankings readily come up in professional sports, where prowess should be enough evidence of testosterone levels.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  January 25, 2012

Review: Canfield House

Not just for robber barons
Interesting atmosphere in the lobby. A wealth of surrounding wood paneling, an Art Deco tasseled lamp on the host station, and the pièce de résistance: a tall roulette wheel, beckoningly still.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  January 25, 2012

The Gamm’s Festen is a fractured family tale

Secrets and lies
A certain lugubrious prince had a difficult time in another Danish household, but that was all tea and sympathy compared to the turbulent family in Festen .
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  January 24, 2012

SALT showcases Lindsay-Abaire and Broccoli

Small pleasures
Intending to enhance the flavor of local theater, SALT (Stage Actors Live Theater) is presenting its second production at Artists' Exchange in Cranston through January 29.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  January 25, 2012
Exit-King_list

Wilbury’s darkly humorous Exit the King

The reign man
Playwright Eugene Ionesco, a progenitor of Theater of the Absurd along with Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, put a lot of himself into Exit the King instead of keeping his usual ironic or satiric distance.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  January 11, 2012
Ralphs_list

Review: Ralph’s Bull & Claw Tavern

So much more than pub food
Time was, a place that called itself a tavern purveyed meals as well as drinks to weary travelers. Nowadays at most such places you might snag some buffalo chicken wings at best.
By: BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  January 10, 2012
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