23 Jan 2008

What's Happenin': January 23 - 29

By Mike Schulz

U2 3D

Putnam Museum & IMAX Theatre

Wednesday, January 23, through Thursday, March 13

 

16 Jan 2008

Musical Chair: "Rigoletto" Director Bill Fabris Equally at Home in Opera and Musical Theatre

By Mike Schulz

Holly Boaz & Chris Scott in Opera Quad Cities' La Boheme Like many noted directors of opera, Bill Fabris has a résumé that boasts a number of heavyweight titles, among them Bizet's Carmen, Puccini's Tosca, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, and Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, which Fabris stage-directs - with Ron May music-directing - for Opera Quad Cities on January 18 and 20.

Unlike many noted directors of opera, though, the New York-based Fabris' résumé boasts an even greater number of productions that are not only considerably more lighthearted than Rigoletto, but as far removed from tragic opera as is conceivable, including My Fair Lady, The Wizard of Oz, and Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

16 Jan 2008

The Mellow Roads of Texas: "The Trip to Bountiful," at Playcrafters Barn Theatre through January 20

By Mike Schulz

Sandy Stoltenberg & Jean Lupoli in The Trip to Bountiful Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful - which is opening the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's 2008 season on an awfully sweet note - is a lovely piece of theatre, but it's such an earnest, delicate little play that it requires all the effrontery and sass it can get.

Let's hear it, then, for Jean Lupoli, who takes what could've been a shrill, one-note caricature and fills it with such winning good humor and welcome meanness that she's utterly irresistible; despite much fine work by her co-stars, the production is practically unimaginable without her. The actress, so fresh and funny, gives Foote's small-scale, big-hearted elegy a true shot in the arm, and in all honesty, it frequently needs one.

16 Jan 2008

Death Wishes: "The Bucket List," "The Kite Runner," and "First Sunday"

By Mike Schulz

Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson in The Bucket ListTHE BUCKET LIST

I can't begin to describe how much I was looking forward to making fun of The Bucket List. A Rob Reiner-directed dramedy about two squabbling terminal-cancer patients -Jack Nicholson, cackling and flexing his eyebrows, and Morgan Freeman, providing soothing, pithy bromides and the inevitable voice-over narration - who gradually become friends and live out their final days skydiving and race-car driving and scaling the pyramids ... . Was there any way this wouldn't be a syrupy disaster of epic proportions?

16 Jan 2008

What's Happenin': January 16 - 22

By Mike Schulz
The John Wasem Band and Dave Tamkin & Co.

Rock Island Brewing Company

Thursday, January 17, and Friday, January 18

 

09 Jan 2008

Postcards from the River's Edge: Doug Smith Explores Davenport's Past Through Photos

By Mike Schulz

Doug Smith ephemera Authors who'd kill for a publisher to even consider their works probably hate Doug Smith.

The Davenport native, a bio-medical equipment technician at Genesis Medical Center, is also a noted collector of local photographs, papers, and artifacts, and has written a regular feature column - "Doug's Q-C Collectibles" - for the Quad-City Times since February 2007.

Yet finding a company willing to publish his first book, says Smith, wasn't a struggle: "They actually found me."

09 Jan 2008

Liar, Liar: "Atonement"

By Mike Schulz

Keira Knightley and James McAvoy in AtonementATONEMENT

It seems that lately, whenever I leave the film version of some well-regarded or beloved novel - be it No Country for Old Men or Gone Baby Gone or one of the Harry Potters - I feel a nagging guilt for not having previously read the books they're based on, and I'd consider remedying that if I wasn't concerned about being subsequently disappointed by the adaptations. (Or, in the case of most of the Potter movies, even more disappointed.) After seeing director Joe Wright's Atonement, though, I was completely annoyed with myself for being unfamiliar with author Ian McEwan's 2001 precursor - I was dying to understand what, when the end credits rolled, inspired a majority of my fellow audience members to applaud.

09 Jan 2008

What's Happenin': January 9 - 15

By Mike Schulz

Take Me Out

River Music Experience

Thursday, January 10

 

The Trip to Bountiful

Playcrafters Barn Theatre

Friday, January 11, through Sunday, January 20

 

Sheesh ... could the area-theatre productions for 2008 be starting on a more intimidating note?

02 Jan 2008

Knocked Out: 2007's Best (and Worst) Movies

By Mike Schulz

Reader issue #665 Let me set the scene for you:

02 Jan 2008

Razor D'etre: "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," "The Great Debaters," and "Charlie Wilson's War"

By Mike Schulz

Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet StreetSWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET

As the title character in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Johnny Depp gives a controlled, admirable one-note performance in a role that calls for many more notes. This isn't a knock - well, not a huge knock - on his singing of this legendary Stephen Sondheim musical; Depp may not have the vocal power or range to do full justice to Sondheim's and book-writer Hugh Wheeler's masterful creation, but he gives it a good shot, and his morose speak-singing fits director Tim Burton's interpretation of the work. It's the interpretation that's the problem.

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