Sunday news and reviews

Posted at 11:53 AM on February 13, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: News and reviews

Books

LET THE RIVER RUN
Doppelganger characters from three different centuries try to make their mark and find their way through the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state.
- Bethanne Patrick, Star Tribune

OATES' MEMOIR A SEARING READ
"A Widow's Story" details the author's painful loss of her husband and her own struggle to survive the months immediately following his death.
- Meganne Fabrega, Star Tribune

Paradise lost
An outlandish Florida family runs a franchise of alligator-rasslin' theme parks. And that's just the beginning.
- Bethanne Patrick, Star Tribune

Taming Winston Churchill's 'black dog of depression'
The black dog of depression comes knocking at a widow's front door.
- Laurie Hertzel, Star Tribune

God and Satan roam the pages of this memoir
The author of "The Ice at the Bottom of the World" tells of becoming a writer, and finding God.
- Debra Monroe, Star Tribune

All the way to the end
A doctor who works with the elderly discovers the positives of aging.
- Stephen J. Lyons, Star Tribune

Dance

Dance work explores love, battle of sexes in time for Valentine's Day
REVIEW Pimsler dance group's work succeeds in engaging the emotions at the Southern Theater.
- Caroline Palmer, Star Tribune

Movies

Talking with "Silver Tongues" director Simon Arthur and star Lee Tegersen
As new discoveries go, the film's Scottish editor/writer/director Simon Arthur makes a great case for becoming a new talent worth discovering, and I'm already looking forward to his next film.
- Jim Brunzell III, TC Daily Planet

Music

Dwight Yoakam is a still a honky tonk hero after all of these years
On Friday at soldout Mystic Lake Casino, Yoakam, 54, gave a pretty great, two-hour, 30-song performance - as stellar as his shows in his prime years.
- Jon Bream, Star Tribune

Baroque music space to open in St. Paul's Lowertown neighborhood
Spot got funds from city, foundation
- Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press

Stage

Ragged edges of Penumbra Theatre's 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' at Guthrie give it texture
Set in a Chicago recording studio in 1927 and centered on the eponymous diva and her back-up band, "Ma Rainey" interweaves themes of power and race, talent and desire, approach and avoidance.
- Dominic P. Papatola, Pioneer Press

Timeless message, or wistful nostalgia?
"Jesus Christ Superstar" revolutionized musical theater and ideas about Jesus 40 years ago. Does it hold up?
- Graydon Royce, Star Tribune

History Theatre's 'Adrift on the Mississippi' paints picture of a harrowing journeyHistory Theatre's show is less about traveling the mighty river than it is about the results of pursuing a course with courage and determination.
- Renee Valois, Pioneer Press