By Rex Reed 2/08/12 10:11am

movies

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Private Romeo?

Private Romeo: Every Soldier is a Lover

From a World War II Macbeth in an Alan Ladd trench coat to a drug-dealing Shylock in an all-black Merchant of Venice set in Harlem, Shakespeare has been boldly “opened up” before. (A rock ’n’ roll Hamlet, anyone?) But a gay Romeo and Juliet, both played by military school cadets on their way to West Point, is a new one on me. It’s Private Romeo, a brave, controversial, not always successful, but hugely adventurous and highly liberated movie that offers a fresh take on the Bard in the age of same-sex marriage. Like it or not, you will not go away yawning. Read More

By Rex Reed 1/31/12 7:40pm

theater

Numrich, Erbe, Galvin and Woodbridge.

Yosemite Director Pedro Pascal Leaves His Actors Out in the Cold

The best thing (correction: the only thing) worth remembering about Yosemite, a paralyzing bore at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater on Waverly Place, is the terrific set by Raul Abrego. On a stage the size of a forever stamp, we are in the middle of a snow-covered redwood forest. Gigantic trees grow into the ceiling, denuded shredded branches and fallen logs the size of Humvees litter the landscape. You can smell the evergreens and hear the wind. You reach for a sweater. Then a truckload of Valium by Daniel Talbott is dumped on the landscape while you try to stay awake, as three miserable siblings brave the cold and dig a grave to bury their baby brother wrapped in a garbage bag. Read More

By Robert J. Hughes 3/08/11 11:38pm

Spring Arts

Who Matters Now: A Baker's Dozen of the Season's Rising Stars

With warmer weather comes the heat. Here are some of the fresher faces in theater, opera, dance, the visual arts, film and television–the ones people will be talking about this spring.

David Lomeli, singer
Nemorino, The Elixir of Love
New York City Opera
March 22 to April 9
In this production of Donizetti’s Elixir of Read More