Shira Hecht


Leisure

Finding Love, Etcetera

This Valentine’s Day, why not expand your cultural horizons? The Davis Center is putting on “Love, Etcetera,” a stupendous dance show by the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange based on the work of those two classic romantic Wills, Shakespeare and Nelson. A surprising pairing, but as Artistic Director Peter DiMuro explains, “their works are about human foibles, and they’re great storytellers.”

Leisure

Popped Culture: Romcoms and Reviews

It’s February, which means that, in addition to more sunlight and an influx of pink at CVS, we can expect lots and lots of bad movies. The beginning of the calendar year is the usual dumping ground for movies no one expects to be considered for Oscars: action movies too dull for the summer, comedies that have been “reshot” six or seven times, and a plethora of formulaic romantic comedies (romcoms, if you will), a genre that gets less respect than almost any other.

Leisure

Death in Wisconsin

The “folk opera” Wisconsin Death Trip, now playing at the Gonda Theater, is based on a book/art piece consisting of archival photographs from Wisconsin in 1890, framed by newspaper reports, asylum records and other “primary sources.” Apparently, 1890s Wisconsin was a terrible place to be, and people suffered a rash of suicides, murders, insanity and general mayhem. The play sort of frames this story with the perspective of a Reagan-era drifter, a possible heir to the misery of the American Midwest.

You now know as much about the plot of this show as I do, and I saw it. More about sustaining a tone than creating a story, the play doesn’t really “go” anywhere.

Leisure

Lez’her Ledger: COLBERT!

As we live less than an hour from the National Portrait Gallery (right by the Verizon Center), a few friends and I decided it was incumbent upon us to make a pilgrimage to Stephen Colbert’s portrait, hanging next to a bathroom in that esteemed institution through February as part of an elaborate prank by the show. (The need to fill time without writers might have something to do with it). We weren’t the only ones—the place was packed, and we kept turning corners and running into vaguely familiar people, possibly from campus.

Leisure

He’s Not There

By the time you read this Heath Ledger will have been dead for at least about 48 hours. Yet his death and his life have already been discussed, examined and analyzed, the analysis analyzed, a thousand theories raised and discarded and made into cover stories.

Leisure

Leave the “House,” ASAP

“House of Blue Leaves” wants to say something, and touches on a lot of grand themes—fame and media in society, the individual in our saturated world, the tension between dreams and reality. Unfortunately, it just ends up a mess, so nothing much comes through. One leaves feeling battered, rather than contemplative.

Leisure

Golden God?

The Golden Compass, which comes out nationwide on Friday, has all the ingredients of a standard big-budget fantasy epic. Complex fantastical universe, surprisingly like our own—check. Talking animals—check (several times over). Ian McKellen and/or Christopher Lee—check and check! Shadowy, evil villain bent on controlling the entire magical world—check.

And that’s where things get complicated.

Leisure

It really is “All in the Timing”

Three days before Friday’s scheduled opening for Mask and Bauble’s “All in the Timing”, the mysterious process of assembling a theatrical production was underway in Poulton Hall. A girl walked by carrying a ladder and called to someone across the hall, “Oh, don’t worry, we found a bucket of chains.” The cast lounged around, putting on and taking off costumes, telling complicated stories about making out with the lights off. Tyler Spalding (SFS ‘08), the producer of this whole venture, wasn’t there yet, and it seemed he was the only one who knew what was going on.

Voices

Make space, not flyers

I want there to be less flyers on this campus. I dream, ladies and gentlemen, of pushing a door that is a solid, unbroken brown pane. I dream of bare lampposts, of seeing the actual bricks in the Red Square archway. I want blue electrical tape to be used for … whatever it is usually used for, rather than to outline program board events or dinners. I want some space.

Leisure

Trees and Ghosts ghastly, fun

To really enjoy Trees and Ghosts, you have to come into it with an open mind and absolutely no irony. Check your cynicism at the door; even the in-flight entertainment (no, really—they have a video with flight attendants and everything) is over the top.