Theater – Page 3 – Ennis Smith

Art, Books, Current Affairs, Fashion, Film, Literature, Music, My back pages, Politics, Television, Theater

Gone Girls

August 25, 2013

Some are born to leave their mark. Lately we’ve lost so many who have that late summer feels a touch more autumnal; now we have to get used to life without Eydie Gorme, Elmore Leonard, Dennis Farina, Emile Griffith, Walter DeMaria, Virginia E. Johnson, Esther Williams, James Gandolfini, and Michael Ansara, not to mention Helen…

Film, Television, Theater

Karen Black, 1939-2013

August 8, 2013

An original. She was an actress whose best roles came in film’s last golden age (the 70s), a cross-eyed wildling embued with sex appeal and a fierce intelligence, no surprise for someone who entered college at the age of 15. Retrospective: Five Easy Pieces (winning an Oscar nomination as well as the Golden Globe and…

Music, Television, Theater

Cory Monteith, Star of “Glee” 1982-2013

July 14, 2013

Gloomy Sunday: shame to get this news upon waking. What a charming young actor–check out this obit in the Chicago Tribune. R.I.P. sweet prince…

Current Affairs, Gay, History, Museums/Galleries, Theater

Blood Count

July 1, 2013

To draw comparisons between the current Broadway production of Macbeth and the New York Historical Society’s just opened exhibition AIDS in New York: The First Five Years seems a reach. Yet after seeing both in the same week, my thoughts drift to issues of mortality, not to mention body counts. Anyone who lived in New…

Film, Television, Theater

Jean Stapleton, Comic Miracle, 1923-2013

June 3, 2013

What a sweetheart. Made me laugh out loud in everything from All in the Family (as Edith Bunker) to Klute (in a cameo as anxious secretary). What versatility-be it musicals (she was in the original cast of Funny Girl and Bells are Ringing) or drama, hers was a career that ranged from Broadway to TV…

Dance, Music, Television, Theater, Vespers

RIP: Smash

May 28, 2013

Ask any rabid television fan: the road to hell is paved with the carcasses of shows that are too out there, too cerebral, too genre, too tiny-demographic-by-way-of-special-interest-esoteric. You could go back as far as Adam’s Rib (a short-lived comedy series starring Blythe Danner and Ken Howard) or Honey West (Anne Francis as a karate-chopping private…

Criticals, Current Affairs, Dance, Music, Short Cuts, Theater

Accent on Youth

August 20, 2012

As summer creeps to a close, I thank the stars for the Shins: look beneath the mind-bending time signatures of this pop group and you’ll find a neo-folk style that straddles eras as well as genres. Its easy evocation of coltish youth suits Trey McIntyre’s choreography for the Shins-titled Oh, Inverted World, part of the…

Current Affairs, Dance, Film, Music, My back pages, Theater, Vespers

Why my heart doesn’t go dancing

April 28, 2012

Is April the kindest, or the cruelest month? The party line affirms the first: it’s the time of rebirth when saucer magnolias pop their tragic blooms, crocuses and tulips sprout, warm weather hints and Easter descends, toting tales of resurrection. I’m not feeling it, which makes me wonder if I ever have. Chocolate bunnies excepted,…

Current Affairs, Dance, Film, Race, Television, Theater, Vespers

Firsts: Don Cornelius 1936-2012, Camilla Williams 1919-2012, Ben Gazzara 1930-2012

February 6, 2012

You turned on the TV on Saturday afternoon and there he was, the envy of every black boy on the block. It was his high style and aspirational exhortations that drew us each week, mirrored more youthfully by the Soul Train dancers, whose moves we copied for use on our own dance floors: street corners,…

Art, Film, Television, Theater, Vespers, video

James Farentino 1938-2012; Nicol Williamson 1936-2012; Eiko Ishioka 1938-2012

January 27, 2012

Farentino was lethal: a handsome actor whose performances ranged from Happy in Lee J. Cobb’s Death of a Salesman (later onstage as Biff to George C. Scott’s Willie) to Juan Peron in the Faye Dunaway telefilm “Evita Peron.” My favorite: his hotheaded lawyer in TV’s The Bold Ones. The Scotsman Williamson was a pretty decent…