Capsule Reviews

Bridges This playwright didn’t know when to stop. John Fullinwider wrote and stars in this talky, often turgid two-act drama about a crisis among Dallas’ homeless in 1984. When the mayor (Bill Jenkins) decides to promote the city as an Olympic site, he and the police are bent on clearing…

Capsule Reviews

Bodies Past and Present: The Figurative Tradition in the Nasher Collection In this succinct array of sculptural pieces now showing in the two main galleries on the street level of the Nasher Sculpture Center, one is not so much challenged by the figure of the human body but carefully taught…

All Colored In

Sure, black-and-white photos are classic, but artworks in color aren’t anything to sneeze at. Think of the allure of a newspaper when, instead of just black-and-white print staring out, there’s an eye-catching color photo or illustration drawing a reader in. Fashion magazines would be far less influential. Atlases would be…

This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks

Thursday, January 27 It’s a one-night-only, going-out-in-style all-nighter for one of Dallas’ biggest rock stars. OK, so it’s a reception and book signing for Jesús Moroles, a granite sculptor with an exhibit closing at the Dallas Museum of Art. But that intro is so much better. “Rock star” may sound…

Vocal Minority

She comes on strong, this Rhodessa Jones. It’s her voice. Mezzo-soprano, rich, resonant. Passionate, persuasive. Thousands of lines of theater dialogue have been recited with this voice; hours of conversation spoken, philosophizing with friends, mentors, students. Her exquisite command of the language is enhanced by the sound of the words…

Swing By

1/28 There is a myth, propagated by critics and other lost souls, that dancing is difficult. In fact, dancing is as easy as walking, skipping and landing your own reality television show. (Dancing well? Now, that’s another story.) It’s a matter of discarding the stiff mantle of self-consciousness, which many…

In the Game

1/30 This is Texas, and there are few things we enjoy more than football (state-sanctioned death and gas-guzzling pickup trucks, maybe, but that’s about it). Which is why it’s been so hard around here of late, what with the Cowboys ruining our year with the 6-10 disappointment that they tried…

Dog Show

1/29 Kitchen Dog Theater departs from its usual philosophy of forcing audiences to question their moral and social compasses, exciting their creative drives and offering nothing but fresh material on January 29 when it hosts its kinda everyday, somewhat traditional, totally alcohol-lubricated fund-raiser called Hooch & Pooch. The event, which…

Love Song

1/27 If Tim Rice and Elton John took a crap on the floor, put a hat on it and called it a musical, it would still be one of the best damn musicals you’ve ever seen. After the gigantanormous success of their The Lion King collaboration, John and Rice cranked…

Unlucky 13

Assault on Precinct 13, the sluggish remake of John Carpenter’s grungy 1976 movie of the same name, begins with a bang to which it never lives up. In a smoky den of all manner of iniquity, Ethan Hawke’s trying to close a drug deal. With his girl splayed out on…

Is It Over Yet?

“Twenty-four hours. 350 miles. His girlfriend’s kids. What could possibly go wrong?” In the case of Are We There Yet?, here’s the short answer: a flaccid screenplay, bratty kids stripped of depth and personality, a single joke replayed in every scene, unearned attempts at sentiment and a bizarrely whitened backdrop,…

Send Out the Clowns

Being terribly clever can make for terrible comedy. Freedomland, Amy Freed’s odd play about a family of brilliant eccentrics, spews clever lines 90 to nothing for more than two hours. “Sentimentality is a form of murderous aggression,” quips art critic Titus (Lee Trull), staring at a kitschy painting titled “Clowns…

Capsule Reviews

Bodies Past and Present: The Figurative Tradition in the Nasher Collection In this succinct array of sculptural pieces now showing in the two main galleries on the street level of the Nasher Sculpture Center, one is not so much challenged by the figure of the human body but carefully taught…

Capsule Reviews

Bad Dates After you see this little one-character comic gem, you’ll want to do two things: (1) go shoe shopping; and (2) be best friends with actress Julie White. In Theresa Rebeck’s play, the adorable White is Haley Walker, a discombobulated restaurant manager transplanted from the Deep South to Midtown…

Passing Strange

As an official boundary sketch artist for the U.S. government, Arthur Schott was a dismal failure. Schott’s job in 1850 was to travel the border between Mexico and the United States and render unmistakable landmarks that would prove where each country started or stopped. Schott was only one of a…

This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks

Thursday, January 20 After watching a particularly suspenseful film (or simply a really good one), we sometimes wish we’d never seen it so we could naívely watch it all over again. Abbreviated Enlightenment offers that fresh and new opportunity with its play /ochen chotto schpiel/: ¨very little play.¨ The troupe…

Super Group

Bill Komodore. Linnea Glatt. Vincent Falsetta. Allison V. Smith. Frank Tolbert. Benito Huerta. Pamela Nelson. Brian Fridge. Ann Stautberg. Greg Metz. It’s an impressive list of artists that any gallery would fight for. But Barry Whistler Gallery didn’t have to fight. They just had to ask. And in some cases,…

From the East

1/21 Compared with some 102nd birthdays–extra serving of pudding (tapioca sounds festive), Wheel of Fortune AND Jeopardy, new slippers, deck of large-print playing cards–staying up past midnight does sound pretty damn exciting. That’s how the Dallas Museum of Art celebrates a century plus two. It stays open until midnight as…

Use Some “Imagination”

1/22 To me, Smucker’s Stars on Ice is just the latest in the long line of events marching through the American Airlines Center that have nothing to do with professional ice hockey. It’s heartbreaking, really. But I won’t hold that against the pretty ice dancers. The Emmy award-winning and nationally…

In Circles

1/22 When we’re feeling philosophical, the phrase “Life is a circle, we’ll meet again” seems to best summarize our outlook. Our quote comes courtesy of Marc Singer in the 1982 sci-fi movie extravaganza Beastmaster, but the sentiment, as you’ll find at the Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art,…

First Lady

1/20 Sis Carr wasn’t one of those 1950s housewives who took care of the kids, fixed dinner and looked forward to the weekly bridge game on Saturday night. Nope, not Sis. Even her name vibrates with enthusiasm, which she has, and energy, which her friends and colleagues in Dallas arts…

Misdirected

Bad Education, the new film by the flamboyant Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, opens on a man sitting at a table, poring over the tabloids for stories of interest. When he finds something he likes, he reads it to his lover: Isn’t this an arresting image? Could we generate drama from…