Arts

Whatchamacallit

Jack Pendarvis's not quite mot juste
John Gardner, the great teacher and novelist who wrote approximately 413 books before annihilating himself on a motorcycle in 1982, was very big on vocabulary.

By JAMES PARKER | October 15, 2009

Interview: Bill Maher

Bill Maher's new rules to live by
"If liberals act like pussies, then they are pussies."

By CHRIS FARAONE | October 15, 2009

Chemistry is key in Trinity’s Shooting Star
The little two-person play that Trinity Repertory Company is staging in the intimate downstairs theater got its title from the poignant Bob Dylan song "Shooting Star."

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | October 13, 2009

Searching for a vision

New photographs at Stairwell and RIC’s Bannister Gallery
Haley O'Connor, the co-founder of Stairwell Gallery, includes a few of her own photos in the gallery's new show, "Yesterday Today and Tomorrow."

By GREG COOK | October 13, 2009

Lasting impressions

RISD’s ‘The Brilliant Line’ details the history of engraving
The Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries didn't become known as the European age of rebirth for nothing.

By GREG COOK | October 07, 2009

I is another

Ed Shea’s tour de force in 2nd Story’s Wife
Lothar Berfelde was born both a generation too late and a generation too early, growing up as he did in Berlin when the Nazis were coming to power in the '30s.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | October 07, 2009

Photos: The Brilliant Line at RISD's Museum of Art

The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480- 1650, on display until January 3, 2010
Photos from artwork at the Rhode Island School of Design in T he Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480- 1650, exhibit.

By RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN | October 07, 2009

Monster mash

Young Frankenstein lumbers into PPAC
As high points of comedy go, the "Putting On the Ritz" routine in Mell Brooks's Young Frankenstein has to be one of the avalanche-inducing helpless-laughter pinnacles.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 30, 2009

The digerarti

‘Pixilerations’ plugs in Providence art
Strapped into Erik Conrad’s electronic vest, I stood waiting for the personal digital assistant, attached by a wire to the outfit, to make a GPS connection.

By GREG COOK | October 02, 2009

Unfettered farce

Brown’s Tartuffe puts the roar in uproarious
Farce is designed for more than pleasant laughter and fingertips-to-palm applause. In celebration of that, an all-stops-out production of Molière’s Tartuffe is being staged at Brown University Theatre (through October 4), and it gets the audience to put the roar in uproarious.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | October 20, 2009

Best of the Bard

The Gamm’s masterful Much Ado About Nothing
The Comedy of Errors ? Ha. The Merry Wives of Windsor ? Ha; ha.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 30, 2009

Gang of six

‘4 Thieves’ at Firehouse 13; Mays and Sgouros at the PAC
Around town lately, you may have noted the screenprint that Andrew Moon Bain designed for the four-person exhibit “4 Thieves” at Firehouse 13.

By GREG COOK | September 23, 2009

Must-see moves

Flying feet and acrobatic hijinks
Two of this fall's dance performances will tell Halloween-style stories — a reprise of Viktor Plotnikov's THE WIDOW'S BROOM , by Festival Ballet Providence, and a premiere of Miki Ohlsen's DRACULA , by Island Moving Co.

By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | September 16, 2009

Take a look

New spaces and fresh faces
A year ago the future looked bright as the RISD Museum debuted its shiny new Chace Center.

By GREG COOK | September 17, 2009

Both new and old classics

Life on the boards
The Gamm certainly has come a long way in the quarter-century leading up to this its 25th anniversary season. The evolution of its name alone is quite a trip.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 16, 2009

Berlin calling

A ‘very Trinity’ take on Cabaret
If you ask someone whether they've seen Cabaret , odds are the answer will be yes. Ask Curt Columbus, and the answer is likely to be: Which one? Sitting in the upstairs theater of Trinity Repertory Company, where their production runs through October 11, the artistic director rattled off a chronology as lengthy as a convoluted German sentence.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 15, 2009

Water, benign and fierce

Sailing photos at Moses Brown, Katrina’s aftermath at Brown
In Onne van der Wal's sailing photos, it seems the weather is always balmy and the golden sun always setting. The Jamestown resident's exhibit at Moses Brown School's Krause Gallery (250 Lloyd Avenue, Providence, through October 2) depicts a world that's forever at its endless summer, can't-get-any-better-than-this peak.

By GREG COOK | September 15, 2009

Face off

Doubt explores the quicksand of certainty
If you were an ordinary Catholic boy in parochial school, giving nuns as hard a time as you were getting, you probably ended up with the usual stories of ruler-rapped knuckles. If you grew up to be talented playwright John Patrick Shanley, you ended up writing Doubt: A Parable , a fascinating exploration of the quicksand of certainty.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 15, 2009

Embracing humanness

Stevie Jay's Life is a work in progress
Don't go listen to Stevie Jay if you want demure talk about sex, less than X-rated language about relationships, or polite, unemotional monologues about anything else he cares to tell you about.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 08, 2009

Allegorical expressions

Lydia Stein's “Love Songs, Hobos & Other Spirits”
Horses break loose from carnival carousels and run free, a horse-headed naked woman cuddles a rabbit as blue birds circle, and an escaped carousel horse visits the grave of a flower in Providence artist Lydia Stein's exhibit "Love Songs, Hobos & Other Spirits" at AS220's Project Space.

By GREG COOK | September 09, 2009