Culture Watch

Painter of Disquiet: Félix Vallotton at the Metropolitan Museum of Art'

by Sam Ben-Meir

Vallotton’s work unquestionably merits the renewed attention — his paintings possess a mysterious quality, narrative appeal, and attention to detail, as well as invoke a delicious sense of irony and wit.

Somewhere Over Their Rainbows - Deanna Durbin and Judy Garland

by Bruce Chadwick

In the late 1930s and 1940s, Deanna and Judy, just teenagers, were two of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Deanna was not only a superb actress, but as a singer had the voice of an angel.

Little Women are Bigger Than Ever

by Bruce Chadwick

Director Gerwig, who also wrote the screenplay, has  made this a very modern look at life in the 1860s.

Reviews of The Man in the High Castle and the Misunderstanding of History

by Elizabeth Stice

Some of the venom directed at the show and its politics reflects a tragic misunderstanding of the actual relevant history.

How the Nutcracker Ballet Went from a Flop to a Christmas Classic

by Bruce Chadwick

Today, about 40% of annual ticket revenue for all Americana ballet companies comes from productions of The Nutcracker.

A Concise History of Diets through Life and a Lot of Show Biz Spice

by Bruce Chadwick

The play is warm and loving. It is a memoir of sorts with her as the center. It is not a drama or high comedy or sprawling spectacle, either, but it is good.

The Problem with Ken Burns' Country Music

by Peter LaChapelle

What would a Country Music that deals with country music’s complicated and often problematic political history look like?

How Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day Can Help Us Understand Our Political Moment

by Frank Palmeri

Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day is a rare bird—a revival (with a substantial re-write) that proves to be more timely and incisive than the original was.

A Review of Amazon Prime’s Series Dostoevsky

by Walter G. Moss

Americans unfamiliar with Dostoevsky's life, and perhaps even with some of his greatest works like Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, can now get to know him via Amazon Prime’s 8-part subtitled series Dostoevsky, directed by the Russian Vladimir Khotinenko.

Cinderella, Whose History Goes Back to the First Century, Is Still a Delight, Glass Slippers and All

by Bruce Chadwick

The tale seemed to have first appeared in Egypt around 100 A.D. That story featured a lost Greek girl who stumbled into a party hosted by the Pharaoh.

A Marvelous Christmas Carol

by Bruce Chadwick

This new A Christmas Carol, based on Charles Dickens’ novel, has a different look to it, a different musical score, a different Scrooge and different ghosts. But it is the same heart-warming story. 

England’s Richard III as Murderous, Royal Thug

by Bruce Chadwick

William Shakespeare’s bone-chilling play Richard III portrays England’s deformed monarch as a murderous thug, one of the great villains of world history.

The Brave Jewish D’Artagnan Who Fenced for Germany in the 1936 Olympics

by Bruce Chadwick

One of the reasons Games resonates today is that ever since those long-ago Olympics in 1936 Jews have faced constant discrimination and persecution, unfairly so, and face it today, too.

The Battle of Midway Movie is Mostly Terrific

by Bruce Chadwick

Despite its drawbacks, Midway is a rip-roaring military saga and a testament to the men who won it.

Americans Were Too Stodgy for Art Nouveau

by Diana Muir Appelbaum

Art nouveau was the modern art movement that America almost entirely missed.  Not only is it absent from our streets, it is largely missing from our museums, a void that a traveling exhibit, Designing the New: Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style, now at the Walters Museum in Baltimore, is seeking to repair.

A Baseball Musical that Needs Some Relief Pitching

by Bruce Chadwick

Last Days of Summer, written by Steve Kluger and based on his 1998 novel, is the story about players from the New York Giants 1940 team, that toiled in New York along with the Yankees and Dodgers, and a little kid who loved the game.

Harriet Appropriately and Aptly Honors Harriet Tubman

by Bruce Chadwick

Harriet is not only an enjoyable and inspirational film, but one that covers a lot of pre and post-Civil War history as well as some about the war itself.

1600s Verona: Romeo, Juliet, and A Romantic Tragedy for the Ages

by Bruce Chadwick

This Romeo and Juliet is a triumph.

Over the Rainbow to Oz Once Again with Judy

by Bruce Chadwick

The story of the film classic is told in a bright, cheerful new musical, Chasing Rainbows, the Road to Oz, that opened last week at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey,

Love in Post World War II Paris

by Bruce Chadwick

An American in Paris is a complicated story of a man who loves a woman.