Category Archives: Books

TOI’s HANSEL AND GRETEL: BEAUTIFUL AND FUN AND UNIVERSALLY TRUE

Why a fairy tale? A fairy tale explains the world to both youngsters and to adults, who may have forgotten important truths. As the fairy tale master Bruno Bettelheim explains, the fairy tale expresses in words and actions the things which go on in the child’s, or childlike adult, mind. Or as G.K. Chesterton rightly […]

August 4, 2018 – 9:26 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Books, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Opera, Quotations, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology | Comments (0)

TIDEWATER STAGE’S DIAL M FOR MURDER: FABULOUS THEATER

“Smell-o-vision” “Illusion-o” “Percepto” “Sensurround” “3D” The history of film can be seen as an ongoing attempt to use technology to reproduce and distribute the power of live stage performance inexpensively to a wide audience. Before considering the work at Tidewater Stage, let’s look at the journey Frederick’s Knott’s tale took to get to Virginia Beach. […]

June 18, 2018 – 9:37 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Books, Current Events, from Paul, History, Movies, Music, Quotations, Television, Theater | Comments (0)

Virginia Stage Company’s CROWNS: A Majestic Theater Event

In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Saint Paul asked, For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? Saint John Chrysostom explained that, ”he who will not seek in the well being of his neighbor his own benefit will not attain […]

May 29, 2018 – 11:50 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Books, from Paul, History, Music, Quotations, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology | Comments (0)

LITTLE THEATRE OF NORFOLK’S DEATH OF A SALESMAN: THE SOUL SURVIVOR

Jack Kline, president and chief operating officer of Christie Digital Systems USA, Inc. says “people like to do business with people they like. That’s just a natural part of the way people operate.” People prefer the people they like. Jurors prefer the more likeable attorney. Voters prefer the more likable candidate. Buyers prefer to purchase […]

March 17, 2018 – 12:06 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Books, Current Events, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Quotations, Theater, Theology | Comments (0)

LES MIS: THE ENERGIZER MUSICAL

The musical Les Misérables premiered on  September 24,1980; Duracell’s Energizer Bunny debuted nine years later, but unlike the pink bunny, Schonberg’ and Boubil’s musical keeps getting stronger and stronger. Over 70 million people in 44 countries never grow tired of this magical stage work. (Aside from Hamlet, Kathleen and I have seen Les Mis more […]

January 26, 2018 – 9:34 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Books, Current Events, from Paul, History, Music, Opera, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology | Comments (0)

LADY BIRD: A TREE GROWS IN SACRAMENTO

The story was called the “best of the year” by the New York Times The author was hailed as a “fresh, original, finished talent” who tells a story about a young girl’s “coming of age”, “growing up and the beginning of wisdom,” “no unsavory detail” is omitted in a tale that has “light and air […]

December 7, 2017 – 7:08 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Books, Current Events, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Movies, Quotations | Comments (0)

Metropolitan Opera’s MAGIC FLUTE: Saved by the Singing

During the Civil War, President Lincoln was criticized for attending the opera so often. He replied, “I must have a change, or I will die.” No opera that he saw was as different from everyday life, even wartime life, than Mozart’s MAGIC FLUTE. Mozart scholar, and a former director of the Glyndebourne Festival, Myer Fredman […]

October 15, 2017 – 3:39 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Books, from Paul, History, Music, Opera, Quotations, Theater, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Tidewater Opera Initiative: Fearless Performance

If you need proof as to the truth of Henri Matisse’s observation, “Creativity takes courage,” you need go no further than the weekend performances at Norfolk’s funky Hugh R Copeland Center of Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor and Henry Purcell’s  Dido and Aeneas. The Tidewater Opera Initiative (TOI), a self-described “boutique opera company”, presented the pair of […]

August 7, 2017 – 11:24 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Books, from Paul, History, Music, Opera, Theater, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

TIDEWATER STAGE’S THE 39 STEPS: A HILARIOUS HOMAGE

“Spoof’ was originally a late 19th century drinking game involving coins. By the late 1950s the term began to be used to describe a skit or “send-up” of a popular literary or cultural genre. By the late 1970s “spoof” had engendered a theatrical movement known as the “Theatre of the Ridiculous”, itself a send up […]

June 18, 2017 – 8:29 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Books, Current Events, from Paul, History, Movies, Music, Theater | Comments (0)

EUGENE ONEGIN at the Met: Netrebko Redefines Tatiana

Some fans of Alexander Pushkin’s great and iconic verse novel Eugene Onegin can’t stomach Pytor Illyich Tchaikovsky’s operatic version. Too much of the master Russian author’s brilliance is lost, they say, in the opera’s simplified libretto, written in only nine days. Pushkin’s 1833 novel is a text that “divides Russian literature into a ‘before’ and […]

April 23, 2017 – 3:06 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Books, Current Events, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Opera, Poetry, Theater | Comments (0)