Arts

Story telling

Whitney's latest show has quiet power
The three artists whose work is currently on view at Whitney Art Works in Portland have a taste for narratives, real or invented.

By KEN GREENLEAF | April 16, 2009

Growing pains

The 2009 PMA Biennial steps awkwardly forward
Although no one piece in this spartan biennial is lacking in value, the collective effect is one destined to get lost in the Rolodex.

By IAN PAIGE | April 08, 2009

Struggling at the end of a life well lived
The title assumes an evolution of meanings in Trying , an autobiographical drama by Joanna McClelland Glass, based on her experiences with the real-life Judge Biddle.

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 08, 2009

Brain strain

Jonah Lehrer on neurological warfare and picking a cereal
Those of us aching for a 300-page treatise about the crippling implications of the "build your own scramble" at Local 188 won't, at first glance, find a great deal of solace in Jonah Lehrer's second book, How We Decide.

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | April 08, 2009

The price is right

Alexander C. Irvine sees a Buyout in your future
For a guy sometimes compared to Philip K. Dick, Alex Irvine took his time in getting around to writing about the future.

By SAM PFEIFLE | April 01, 2009

State of the arts

Emerging trends and promising futures for Portland artists
In Portland, and around Southern Maine, developing trends hold promise for our changing, but still cantankerously distinct, artistic character to act as a new kind of cultural reflection.

By IAN PAIGE | April 01, 2009

Stage blogging

A chat room sex scandal
The main characters of the play Speech and Debate, three Oregon high school misfits, do a lot of their living among the modern technologies of chat rooms, Google, and personal video blogs.

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 01, 2009

All in the timing

Acorn's Maine Playwrights Festival springs eternal
Acorn's Maine Playwrights Festival springs eternal

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 01, 2009

The shape of things

Portlander's stories explore the connections between what's inside and out
We are shaped by what surrounds us. Our exteriors — meaning geographical locations, physical infrastructure, and bodies alike — affect our interior states of mind.

By DEIRDRE FULTON | April 01, 2009

Review: The Rocket that Fell to Earth

Roger Clemens's fall and rise and fall
On July 18, 1992, in a celebrated post-game meltdown at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, the pitcher formerly known as the Rocket expressed his displeasure over a column I had written.

By GEORGE KIMBALL | April 01, 2009

Restoring a master

A new biography seeks to redefine Marc Chagall's place in art history
When Marc Chagall died in 1985 at the age of 98 he was internationally famous, wealthy, and had lived to see a museum built for him by the French government.

By KEN GREENLEAF | March 30, 2009

Just-so stories

Noel Coward's Fallen Angels wait for love
There's plenty of room for neurotic misbehavior in Noel Coward's Fallen Angels .

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 25, 2009

Divine operas

USM shows off two Puccini one-acts
USM shows off two Puccini one-acts

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 18, 2009

Familiar paths

Terry Hilt sheds new light on Maine's coast
Terry Hilt's show of watercolors at Aucocisco provides an opportunity to consider the role of modernism in today's art.

By KEN GREENLEAF | March 18, 2009

Everything is illuminated

Samantha Hunt weaves historical fiction from Nikola Tesla's biography
A solemn pigeon, a rolling thunderstorm, flecks of dust: nearly everything speaks in The Invention of Everything Else , Samantha Hunt's second novel.

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | March 11, 2009

Breaking away

Exploring womanhood at Portland Stage
Out of Sterno is a quirky feminist comedy by Deborah Zoe Laufer, directed by Casey Stangl for Portland Stage Company.

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 11, 2009

Hanging in the balance

Andre LaPorte exhibits variation on the theme at Greenhut
Septuagenarian Andre LaPorte may be a veteran artist but, relative to his long career, he is a new painter.

By IAN PAIGE | March 11, 2009

Review: The Kindly Ones

Inside the Reich
Those put off by the soft-pedaling of the SS in the movie adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's The Reader might be wary of Jonathan Littell's memoir of fictional war criminal Maximilien Aue.

By PETER KEOUGH | March 11, 2009

Review: The Seussification of Romeo and Juliet

In this Verona, small children dwell
For young love, kiss, and star-cross, you're hard-pressed to get/more quintessence than Romeo and Juliet...

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 04, 2009

City of Angels at Lyric Music Theater

Parallel lives: See both in City of Angels at Lyric Music Theater
It's 1940s Hollywood, and we swerve between Stine's reality and Stone's parallel one, in City of Angels , a musical comedy-cum-musical noir , directed by Mary Meserve for South Portland's Lyric Music Theater.

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | February 25, 2009