Blogcritics Author: Jon Sobel

Music Review: East Village Opera Company - Olde School

Jon Sobel — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:20:58 EST

The operatic tradition has always had a place in rock and pop, but this band comes at it from the other direction.
The operatic tradition has always had a place in rock and pop. Elvis Presley and the Platters' Tony Williams, Pat Benatar and Heart's Ann Wilson, metal's Ozzy Osbourne and pop-rock's Dennis De Young, and of course Freddie Mercury, are all singers who have adopted, at certain times and to one degree or another, opera's highly...

Theater Review (NYC): Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, Presented by the Queen's Company

Jon Sobel — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:02:26 EST

Get shipwrecked with Viola and Sebastian in the Queen's Company's hilarious, updated but fully Shakespearean take on the classic comedy.
The all-female Queen's Company updates the classics with a modern pop-culture sensibility, while remaining true to the language, the story, and the groove of the original text. With a comedy like Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, this gang is also funny as hell. In fact, I laughed so much I got a headache. Damn you, Queen's Company.One...

Book Review: Wandering Star by J. M. G. Le Clézio

Jon Sobel — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:28:49 EST

A novel about two refugees, one Jewish and one Palestinian, reminds us that there is no simple right or wrong.
What to do with the weight of expectations? The French novelist J. M. G. Le Clézio is not well known in the English-speaking world, and many of us might never have heard of him had he not been awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature. Now we have had the pleasure of that introduction, but because of the prize, we also feel the burden of...

Music Review: Indie Round-Up - Matt Morris, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Asylum Street Spankers

Jon Sobel — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:34:01 EST

Matt Morris's high, fluty tenor wafts his words into your consciousness like a message carried on the wind.
Matt Morris, Backstage at Bonnaroo and Other Acoustic PerformancesListening to Matt Morris, intimate is the word that comes most readily to mind. His high, fluty tenor, recorded closely into the mic, wafts his words into your consciousness like a message carried on the wind.The first three songs on this sparsely produced EP have little more than...

Theater Review (NYC): Oh, Whistle...: Two Ghost Stories by M R James

Jon Sobel — Sun, 2 Nov 2008 06:57:57 EST

Immerse yourself in the macabre mind of M R James, the master of the English ghost story.
Starting this year, I'm adopting my Left Coast colleague Bob Machray's tradition of attending a Halloween-themed performance every Samhain season. I'm happy to report that my new custom has begun robustly, with a delightfully diverting evening spent in the company of Mr. R M Lloyd Parry. A marvelous reader and actor, this gentleman...

Burning the Future: Seeing the Lights Go Off On Broadway

Jon Sobel — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:49:16 EDT

A new documentary raises the question of where we should be living.
The powerful new documentary Burning the Future: Coal in America explains how critical coal power is to the US economy and to Americans' energy-greedy way of life. It also focuses on the terrible effects modern mining has on the lives of people who live in Appalachian coal country. Specifically, the film documents the contamination of the...

Music Review: Indie Round-Up - Laura Vecchione, Red Wanting Blue, and More

Jon Sobel — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:30:01 EDT

Laura Vecchione's second disc is a consummately crafted and craftily written set of tunes that touch on commercial country, country-rock, and alt/Americana.
Laura Vecchione, Girl in the BandLaura Vecchione's second disc is a consummately crafted and craftily written set of tunes that straddle the borders between commercial country, country-rock, and alt/Americana. My colleague Michael Bialas detailed Laura's devotion to and work on behalf of post-Katrina New Orleans. Notably, on this CD, she covers...

DVD Review: Sunshine Superman: The Journey of Donovan

Jon Sobel — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:11:44 EDT

This two-disc set is a close look at Donovan's life, music, and, maybe even more interesting, his times.
The story of Donovan's life is a fascinating journey through a period in pop music that continues to shape the creative lives of several generations. A new video biography by Hannes Rossacher makes a good case for Donovan as a kind of nexus for many of the musical and musico-social strains that began to mingle in the 1950s and touched off the...

Theater Review (NYC): The Pumpkin Pie Show

Jon Sobel — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 11:10:28 EDT

Clay McLeod Chapman's story-monologues dig for the gory innards of the human soul.
I wanted to see The Pumpkin Pie Show because it's the long-running product of the fevered brain of Clay McLeod Chapman, who wrote the script of the remarkable musical Hostage Song. While the two shows couldn't be much more different in mood and presentation, both dig for the gory innards of the human soul.Hostage Song was a drama with rock...

Theater Review (NYC): To Barcelona! by Michael Niederman

Jon Sobel — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:43:33 EDT

In a new work, a playwright honors his grandfather and all the other Americans who illegally went to Spain to fight against Franco.
It's 1937. Three idealistic New York City workers (and card-carrying Communists) have traveled to the French-Spanish border. They're about to cross into Spain to join up with the government in its doomed struggle against Franco's fascist revolution.Michael Niederman has written this new play rather like an old-fashioned melodrama. ...