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Belfast
Or: You can’t take Belfast out of the Boy Kenneth Branagh is hoiking us on a trip down memory lane. The lane in question is his childhood...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20252 min read
The French Dispatch
Or: The New Yorker, The Movie The position of critic (if you will forgive the presumption on my part, dear reader) hinges not on the...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20254 min read
I and You
Or: And A Rock Feels No Pain Lauren Gunderson, a playwright famed for the tearfully earnest biographies of ideas, sweeps us into smaller,...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20252 min read
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Or: Perfect Harmony Trim and gorgeous, well plotted and its characters finely etched, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is a...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20253 min read
Route
A new play by Alexandra Shields Or: Life Out of the Fast Lane “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.” There...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20253 min read
Romeo and Juliet at the National
Or: Palm to Palm Now this is what we should have been doing all along. The National Theater of Britain rather than try to put together a...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20256 min read
Sleuth at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival
Or: So You Want to Play Games? A stately English manner house. A distinguished writer with a flair for the dramatic. Wife and servants...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20252 min read
Once Upon a (Korean) Time
A new play by Daniel K. Isaac. Or: Bridge of Sparrows What endures? Through war and diaspora and the press of ages, what can a soul turn...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20252 min read
In The Heights
Or: Once on this Island After more than a year without the movies, ones first trip back to the theater ought to be an exemplary specimen...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20252 min read
God's Spies
A new play by Bill Cain Or: What Is Essential It’s been much remarked, to the point of hateful absurdity, that Shakespeare wrote Lear in...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20254 min read
Dune, Part 1
Or: Coarse, and Rough, And it Gets Everywhere
On the drive out to the theater I asked my companion if there was any film he would want...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20254 min read
Fat Ham
Or: Coldly Furnish Forth Whatever else it is James Ijames’s queer, Black, rebellious take on Hamlet does not leave a body indifferent....
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20253 min read
Shakuntala
A new play by Lavina Jadhwani Or: The Light Within A delightful reboot of a 4th century Sanskrit play, Lavina Jadhwani’s Shakuntala tells...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20252 min read
Soul
Or: This Wonderful Life In my capacity as a bookseller, dear reader, and a storyteller, and a critic I find myself having a lot of...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20252 min read
The Green Knight
Or: How to Get A Head in Life and Politics Brush up your Monmoth / Start declaiming him now. in A24’s adaptation of the ancient story of...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20253 min read
46 Plays For America’s First Ladies
Or: Brick by Brick “I’m Jane Pierce,” grins Phoebe Gonzalez, kicking off a micro bioplay, in the style of a stand-up routine, “And I’m...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20254 min read
Manahatta, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Or: The Well Worn Trail Theater really shouldn’t come with a pause button. While the pandemic has opened up productions by some of the...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20253 min read
Spencer
Or: The Living Ghost I was not expecting a gothic horror show. The new biography of Diana, Princess of Wales placards itself as “a true...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20252 min read
The Tempest at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival 2021
Or: The Open Hand I’d posit, dear reader that stage magic is the very best kind there is. The motion of two bodies, or one skilled actor...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20253 min read
The Trial of the Chicago Seven
Or: The Drag Oar How could I fall so deeply for Jerry Rubin? In Aaron Sorkin’s the Trial of the Chicago Seven, Rubin (Jeremy Strong),...
Ben Kemper
May 9, 20253 min read
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