Each week, GBH Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen joins Morning Edition to discuss the latest in Boston's arts and culture. This week, two new productions come to town, while a local museum explores identity, community and family.
"'Twas the Night Before…"
Now playing at the Wang Theatre through Dec. 11
Cirque du Soleil is renowned for bringing some of the world’s most talented gymnasts, acrobats and performers together for productions that feature high production value and even higher talent. "‘Twas the Night Before…" is the first holiday show by Cirque du Soleil to come to Boston, featuring Clement Clarke Moore’s classic Christmas poem “A Visit from St Nicholas” told through the story of Isabella, a teenager “jaded by the Christmas craze.”
While Bowen says that “there are great acts that pop” in "'Twas the Night Before…," including one performer twirling inside a hula hoop and another juggling with his mouth, “overall I wasn’t as enamored as I have been with other Cirque du Soleil shows ... I didn’t find that everything coalesced here” the way many other productions by Cirque du Soleil do, he said.
"SIX"
Now playing at the Emerson Colonial Theatre through Dec. 31
This musical premiered in 2017 at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, from there it moved to London’s West End, then travelled to Cambridge, Mass. by way of the American Repertory Theater, and from there it made a splash on Broadway. Now the national Broadway tour brings it to Boston's Emerson Colonial Theatre.
"SIX" tells the story of Henry VIII’s six wives, among them are Anne Boleyn, Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves, all of whom are trying to decide who, in the eyes of the King, is the “most favored.” Through this premise, the history of these royal wives is reframed, allowing each of them to establish themselves beyond their connection to Henry VIII. The entire production is also being put on by a female-identifying team, furthering the sense of empowerment that fuels the story. Bowen calls the production “so much fun, but also very pointed.”
"Toni Pepe: An Ordinary Devotion," "Lisa Rosowsky: Othering" and "Jane Szabo: Family Matters"
On view at the Danforth Art Museum through Jan. 29
Three exhibits at the Danforth Art Museum at Framingham State University “look at notions of care,” as Bowen explains, with each of the featured artists exploring family, belonging and identity.
Toni Pepe’s “An Ordinary Devotion” re-examines the role of mothers in the world and how they are often depicted or made invisible by popular media. Pepe looks at stock press images, “not necessarily photographs that were formally taken,” and how the reality of motherhood is so often erased. In “Othering,” multimedia artist Lisa Rosowsky looks back at her family history and her father’s experience being the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust and how a sense of being “othered” forms and is transferred across generations. Photographer Jane Szabo also draws on personal experience, reflecting on her time caring for her ailing parents who ultimately passed and the feeling of those moments.
